Terminus Wars
by militaryhistory
Summary: Not every problem attracts or requires the notice of a Spectre, but such need to be resolved anyway. Enter men like Gregory Schuder, mercenary.
1. Pirates and Quarians

Terminus Wars

"Got 'em?"

"Yep."

"What's it look like?"

"Two snipers, couple of shotgun troopers with overchargers, a few soldiers, plus that asari, Kylia Galnor. Looks like that salarian told us the truth."

"You sound surprised."

"He's your contact, not mine, Greg."

"That he is," Captain Gregory Schuder said as he briefly turned to look at his second-in-command. "I also trust him. So should you."

"Yes, sir," Lieutenant Marcus Kalencka replied, and Schuder shook his head slightly as he heard the disbelief in his second's voice.

"You'll see," he said, then looked through his binoculars at the slopes to the side of the bowl that the pirates had landed their shuttle and set up camp in, the better to hide the stolen cargo. "Looks like Bates and Hawthorne are in position, and…there's Whately and M'Zangwe. Tell Sergeant Falkenberg to get his squad ready, then get with Sergeant Pizarro and wait for the signal."

"Yes, sir," Kalencka replied, and crawled off. As he left, Schuder rolled over to look at the tech specialists.

"Y'all ready?" he asked rhetorically. The three nodded.

"Good. Get ready, and don't get in the firefight."

"That won't be a problem, sir," Sergeant Patricia Ferguson replied as Corporals Tom Quill and Jay Alana nodded. "No desire to get into that cauldron."

As two minutes passed, Schuder thought, "_If Kal isn't with Pizarro, I'll be a monkey's uncle_," and fired a sniper round into the asari's head.

Her head snapped back, protected by the kinetic barrier of her suit, before four more sniper shots took both her and the two snipers out.

The shotgun troopers overcharged their weapons and fired, sending the equivalent of rocket blasts into the pirates' rendezvous site and throwing bodies around like they were doll rags as the shrapnel and overpressure overcame shields and armor. As the sound of those blasts fell silent, the assault riflemen and snipers swept the camp for anyone that had been missed in the initial attack as Schuder mentally took a step back and checked the overall situation.

A couple of assault rifles rattled, and he saw a pirate fall, and after that there was no sign of movement.

"Alright," Schuder said as he slung his sniper rifle and pulled his assault rifle out, "Falkenberg, with me. Kalencka, keep overwatch with the snipers and Pizarro. Holler if their friends make it past."

"Roger," he replied.

The techs moved down the hill with him as he trotted to catch up with Falkenberg's squad, which was fanning out to search the smoking remnants of the rendezvous site for survivors.

"Sir," Quill asked as they got halfway down the slope, "why aren't those containers destroyed?"

"Most companies really overbuild their cargo containers," Schuder replied absently. "I've seen these survive direct hits from a Mako cannon. They're rock solid—maybe solider," he added as they came up to Sergeant Falkenberg, whose men were slapping medi-gel on several of the mercenaries.

"Prisoners, Sergeant?"

"Yes, sir. Two batarians, a turian, and the asari, sir."

"She survived three sniper hits in two seconds?"

"Barely, sir. As it is, she's got a massive concussion."

"You've got her amp?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. What about the others?"

"They're the usual gutter sweepings, sir."

"We'll take 'em back to base anyways. D'you have that asari's omni-tool?"

"Right here, sir," Falkenberg said, pulling it out as he spoke.

"Pass it to Ferguson," Schuder replied, then turned to Quill and Alana as Ferguson accepted the tool and began to hack into it. "Check the containers and the bodies. See what's there."

"Yes, sir," they replied. Schuder turned back to Falkenberg as Quill and Alana, as was their custom, flipped a coin to see who would check the bodies and who would check the crates to see who they were registered to.

As Quill sighed and knelt down to rummage through a dead batarian's pockets, Schuder said, "Sergeant, get these prisoners back to the shuttles and tell Petracci and Iverson to get over here to pick up some cargo. Maybe there's some of our client's cargo, maybe it's something we can use ourselves."

"Yes, sir," Falkenberg replied, and soon, his squad and the prisoners were moving towards the cave where they'd hidden the shuttle several hours before.

Schuder put his hand to his ear as his radio crackled. "Captain, captain. You there?" Tobias Bullfinch called in from orbit.

"I'm here, Lieutenant. You got their shuttle?"

"Yes, sir. Caught them as they came in. Fired off a warning salvo and they stopped cold. They're in custody."

"Good. Make 'em set down near my position and stay in orbit."

"Yes, sir."

Schuder grinned. _No casualties, should get a good bounty for this crew, seeing as they've made themselves a nuisance, and we might get some really valuable salvage out of it. This was a good run._

* * *

After the platoon, the formerly stolen cargo, and the prisoners landed on the _John Hawkwood_, Schuder went back to his quarters to catch up on paperwork and get some rest.

"Let's see, here," he said as he went through his mail. "Message from Mr. Von, asking if we've made any progress, seems concerned." He tapped his chin, typed out a message saying they'd made a major breakthrough, sent it, then kept on going. Alana had determined that the cargo had been supposed to go to Dobrovolski, in the Pamyat system. No great surprise. He debated about whether to set course for there or not, then decided to check and see if they might be needed elsewhere. If they weren't, they could go there. If they were, they'd contact the company and arrange to drop the cargo off somewhere on their way.

He kept going through his mail.

_Ah, a job offer. Usually these don't happen while we're on a contract. Must not be too urgent, then…now, let's see, _this _looks interesting,_ he thought as he pulled the message up. _It's a message from a quarian named Zor'Kal vas Ryel. Apparently…oh my. This'll be good. But, moving on…now here's the message I was waiting for. Looks like we're going to Pamyat after all._

He read through it, nodded, shut off his omnitool, got to his feet, and walked down towards the bridge.

"Bullfinch, set course for the Pamyat system."

"Yes sir. On the way."

He turned before the bridge corridor, however, and made his way down to the brig. It was a little more extensive and better-equipped than it usually would be on a ship this size, but intel was a little more important for his band than it was for most mercs.

He really wished he was pretentious enough to call it a free company. Band just seemed unprofessional, and he was a professional. Maybe just call it an organization? That also didn't seem right, since they were so small. He was still trying to decide what to do when he walked into the brig.

He looked around. Each of the three foot soldiers was in a separate cells to make sure they didn't have time to come up with a story. Each member of the shuttle crew was in a cell with one of the pirates from the ground, so that they couldn't come up with one either. That left the asari, who was in the interrogation cell with Quill. Fortunately, he didn't have to go in there.

Instead, he went into the observation room, where Ferguson stood, speaking into a microphone. "That's definitely not right," she said. "She was on Ilium a week ago, and saw Falchor Obuda while she was there." She turned and tapped her headset, and Schuder nodded.

"Keep working on her, Tom," she said. "Captain's here." She hit a button and turned to him.

"You're here earlier than usual."

"I got a message from one of our contacts in Nos Astra. It was mostly things we already knew, but it also mentioned that Ms. Galnora was hired by the Shadow Broker to snag some cargo—and it might have been the cargo we picked up."

"No wonder she's been so reticent," the sergeant mused. "I was wondering if it was something like that."

"Should we tell her that we know the Shadow Broker wants the cargo we now have?"

Ferguson shook her head. "Not now. If it's true, we'll tip our hand too early. If it's not, it'll let her misdirect us."

"All right. But keep it in the back of your mind."

"'Course I will. Just need to expose a few more lies, and she'll give us everything we need to know when Tom mentions the Shadow Broker."

"Good." He paused. "When you're done breaking Ms. Galnora down, find out what you can about a certain Zor'Kal vas Ryel. He wants us, specifically, but it doesn't seem to be urgent to him. It's probably on the level, but it's strange, and I don't like strange."

"You have a nasty and suspicious mind, sir."

"Probably. How's Alana coming with analyzing that cargo?"

"Last I checked, she said it was all light machinery for building habitat parts, nothing special about it" She paused. "What are we going to do with it, anyway?"

"Take it to the original destination, which we're doing now."

"Where?"

"Dobrovolski—which also happens to be where that quarian is."

"The cargo'll be in high demand there, but nothing that would concern the Shadow Broker." She shrugged. "Once the interrogations are done, I'll get you what I know. I'll also start checking on vas Ryel—it might be a pure coincidence, but best to know if it's otherwise."

"Excellent. I'll see you when you're finished."

As he left the brig, he heard Ferguson say, "Good work so far, Tom. Now, ask her about that unfortunate volus…"

He walked back to the bridge and took a moment to look around. Bullfinch was in his pilot's chair, as he usually was when he wasn't sleeping. The man took both his job and himself seriously, which wasn't especially surprising, given that aside from some of the newer shooters he was the youngest person on the ship. That having been said, right now he was the officer on watch, so he was exactly where he needed to be.

Kalencka wasn't here, unsurprisingly—he had the next watch, and he was probably taking a well-deserved rest right now.

If he hadn't been the leader, Schuder would have said he was off-duty. As he was, however, he was simply on standby in case something happened that Bullfinch couldn't handle. Besides, he liked looking at the stars going by as they traveled. Helped him think.

Why would the Shadow Broker want parts for habitats, and why would he want someone to hijack them? It wasn't like they were expensive or anything. Maybe someone really, really wanted to make sure that no one knew they were setting up a colony?

That didn't make much sense either. The galaxy was a big place, and hiding wasn't hard. Garden worlds tended to get the once-over, true, but anywhere else usually didn't get any kind of scrutiny unless it had a lot of resources that were easy to get at. And what was Zor'Kal vas Ryel's game?

No matter. "How long to Dobrovolski, Mr. Bullfinch?"

"From now? Twelve hours, Captain."

"Good. Wake me when we arrive, if you would."

"Yes, Captain."

There was a lot to be said for Dobrovolski, as far as commerce went. Unfortunately, little of it could be said for Schuder's primary line of work.

While the retrieval fee had been quite handsome, and the delivery fee had been nothing to sneeze at, there just wasn't any work here for them, nor was there in the Hekate system. There was some work over in the Sheol system for individual mercs and small teams, but nothing for a band like his. Hoplos usually had work, mostly on Trident, but it was coming up on hurricane season and he didn't want to be stuck there for months.

In other words, now that the cargo was unloaded, there was no reason for them to stay here, besides giving his people some shore leave, which they deserved and they could easily find the means for here. Mercs and miners had _very _similar tastes in entertainment.

Meanwhile, the dossier Ferguson had just given him regarding vas Ryel made for extremely interesting reading. The quarian owned full or part interests in multiple ships, and all of the ones he owned completely were entirely quarian-crewed. In and of itself, that was a bit eye-raising. The Migrant Fleet was something of a self-contained entity, and it was extraordinarily rare to see a quarian outside it except when they were on their Pilgrimage. Quarian ships outside the Migrant Fleet were rarer than hens' teeth, especially in Citadel space.

However, what made things even more interesting was that vas Ryel's ships had been seen in multiple systems where unfortunate things had happened to people who'd mistreated, abused, or cheated quarians. There were indications that he was very close to the Admiralty Board, and Schuder wouldn't be surprised if a search of his ships revealed that they were outfitted with more than just their stated armament, which was already substantial for merchant ships, and quarters for ops teams.

Which made the fact he was coming to him with a contract extremely suspicious. Why would such a man require the services of a scruffy band of human mercenaries?

He took a moment to weigh the risks against the benefits, then shrugged. There wouldn't be any harm in just talking to him. As long as no funds were exchanged, if you said "Sorry, no deal" the worst that would happen would be that the potential client would just not look at you next time he needed something done—and there was work enough that such a thing was affordable.

Besides, learning about the quarians was one of the reasons he was out here, and contact between humans and quarians was infrequent enough that any interaction could be a learning experience.

He keyed a message asking for a time and place where they could meet into his omni-tool, then sent it off and started working on some of the payroll paperwork. He was rather surprised when he got a reply message less than fifteen minutes later, asking him to meet at the Torflan Café in an hour.

That seemed like rather short notice to him, until he looked it up on the local extranet and saw that the place was on the station the _Hawkwood _was docked at. That implied some very interesting things, some of them more worrisome than others.

He called up Kalencka.

"Kal, I'm going ashore to meet a client."

"Understood. Do you want to take anyone with you?"

Schuder paused. "Duncan and Mubarak," he said after a moment. "Tell them to be at the Torflan Cafe in plainclothes in half an hour. Tell them to be on the lookout for quarians."

Kal quirked an eyebrow. "A quarian is requesting our services?"

"Exactly. They usually keep things in-house, don't like getting outsiders involved in their business. Why ask us? I smell opportunity."

With opportunity, of course, came risk, but that needn't be said. Wouldn't be said, over open channels like this.

"Just be careful."

"Of course."

* * *

When Schuder arrived at the Torflan he took a moment to look around before he stepped inside. Whatever else he was, vas Ryel was certainly security conscious—there were at least three quarians in the plaza who had no apparent reason to be there, which was usually a quick ticket to police harassment, which meant no quarian did it unless they had a very good reason for it. There were also a male and female quarian inside the place, according to Duncan, in addition to vas Ryel, who'd been there for about ten minutes.

He'd sent Kal a message to be ready to send out an all-hands-on-deck at a moment's notice. He didn't think this was going to turn into a snatch-and-grab, but he'd been wrong about things before. Besides, his XO liked having things to worry about.

He stepped through the door, walked over to where vas Ryel was sitting, and simply took the other chair himself. "Pleased to meet you, Mr. vas Ryel," he said quietly.

"Captain Schuder," the quarian replied, as quietly. "Your reputation as a decisive man is well-earned."

"Flattery will only get you so far. Why is a quarian looking to hire outside mercenaries?" Schuder asked as he looked at the menu, which was the dextro version of the Torflan's offerings. Unsurprisingly for out here, it was mostly asari with a smattering of salarian, although the ubiquitous hamburger made an appearance.

"Occasionally we find it necessary to accept outside help. Particularly when anonymity is a concern. We are not exactly inconspicuous—and since, for some reason, people think even a chance grouping of quarians means there's a conspiracy, whenever a group of us does something it tends to attract unwanted attention."

Schuder nodded. Quarians reminded him of Gypsies back on old Earth—mistrusted because of their rootlessness, they had a reputation as cheats and thieves. He couldn't speak as to the Gypsies, never having met any of them, but the quarians he'd run into tended to give like for like. Deal square with them, they'd deal square with you. Try to cheat them, and they'd out-cheat you every time.

He was a square dealer. Made life less complicated,

"I'm sending a file to your omni-tool right now. You may want to consider reading it while you wait for your food." vas Ryel fell silent as the waiter approached and Schuder gave his order, then set to reading.

He barely noticed his food arriving, and continued to read as he ate. When he was done with the file, which was before he was done with his food, he looked up at the quarian. "You understand that I'm going to need to verify some of this before I give you an answer."

"Of course. If you'd said anything else I wouldn't hire you. But it all fits, does it not?"

It certainly did—and it fit with the information he had that he was reasonably certain vas Ryel didn't know he had.

"When do you need an answer by?"

"Two days. Now if you will excuse me, Captain Schuder, I must be going."

"Of course. You're a busy fellow."

As the quarian left, Schuder sent the file to Kalencka and Ferguson, along with a message reading "Tell the asari we know about Plan Hachium. See if that cracks her. We need to verify this."

Schuder finished his meal and stood, noting that the quarian "couple" had left about five minutes after their principal. Good tradecraft.

As he walked out the door, he noticed that only one of the quarians loitering outside was still there, and wondered for a moment if he was actually just loitering. That was one of the problems with this business—you started seeing things that weren't actually there.

Which brought up an issue he'd never really had before.

There was something bothering him about the report. It had all the information he would have usually asked for, and some that he normally wouldn't have but still found useful. It was extraordinarily rare for one of his clients to be so helpful. There was almost always some bit of vital information that they didn't want to reveal, because it was either embarrassing, proprietary, or both.

Admittedly, the circumstances here were a little bit different than the average—none of vas Ryel's interests were directly involved, so there was less at stake for him if Schuder decided to do something with the information besides use it to plan the operation—but in some ways that only made the whole thing more puzzling. Why did he care about this 'Plan Hachium'?

There was definitely something that he wasn't telling them. He'd have said it was a family thing, but Ferguson's file on vas Ryel was pretty complete, and it didn't mention anything about a wife or kids or siblings, and usually the involvement of cousins and nieces or nephews didn't elicit that kind of secrecy.

Maybe a lover? That was a possibility, but quarians rarely took lovers outside of the Fleet, the popularity of vids like _Fleet and Flotilla _and its seedier imitators notwithstanding, and adult quarians rarely got into situations where they could be kidnapped by pirates.

Technology? There was a distinct possibility. But it seemed odd that vas Ryel would be reticent about it. Usually if that was what was at stake the client mentioned it up front so as to avoid any unfortunate accidents.

His omni-tool pinged with a message from Ferguson, and he took a look at his secure e-mail. _Cracked like an egg. Everything she knows matches with what he gave you, with the caveat that she didn't know much. She also spilled about who was supposed to pick up those supplies._

Schuder nodded. Men like the Shadow Broker tended to compartmentalize their operations, usually beyond all reason. But some things inevitably leaked, people being people, even if they were aliens.

He sent her a message back. _Meet me in the conference room in ten. Bring Kal._

* * *

When all three of them arrived in the command room, Schuder looked over at Ferguson. "What did our asari prisoner tell you?"

"The supplies were supposed to go to Fenris Lancaster."

"Great. One of Hock's cronies and intermediaries," Kalencka said with a sigh.

"Hock?" Ferguson asked. Schuder reminded himself that while she wasn't new to intel work, she was new out here in the Terminus.

"Donovan Hock, mercenary. He's made his money off of putting down uppity low-level workers for various corporations. Takes jobs most mercs consider too dirty to touch."

The intel sergeant's face looked like she'd bitten into something rancid as Kal spoke. Schuder quirked an eyebrow.

"My father is a union man," she explained. "He's got lots of stories about dealing with men like Hock."

That was no surprise. Outside of Council Space, unionization was dangerous business—and usually more dangerous the more it was needed. There was no love lost between labor and management in the Terminus Systems

"Anyway," she continued, "Plan Hachium is apparently a scheme to set up a pirate base near some of the shipping lanes—lanes that the few quarian merchant freighters use. Our prisoner doesn't think they're specifically targeting the quarians, but they will get hit."

"Which still doesn't answer the question of why they're hiring us."

"That's obvious, sir," Kalencka replied, and Schuder turned and quirked an eyebrow, remembering that his second had a little more experience in these matters than he did.

"He doesn't want to end up on the wrong end of the free rider problem. If it's a random band of mercenaries that does the job and it can't be traced to him, he avoids that."

That made sense, but there was still something niggling at him. He shrugged. "No matter. Do the numbers fit?"

"Yes. It looks like our prisoner's bunch was supposed to be part of this operation. They're going to need some time to find some more people."

"Good. I'm inclined to take this job. Kal?"

"Making contacts with the quarians would definitely be beneficial. Say what you will about them, but they punch above their weight. They also know more about the geth than anyone else."

"Ferguson?"

"Agreed. Contact with the Migrant Fleet is something we've been looking to make for awhile." She looked around. "Shouldn't Bullfinch be here?"

"I ordered him to take some shore leave," Schuder replied, "And this isn't the final decision yet. If he can come up with a good reason not to take this job, we'll discuss it further. Meanwhile, get to work on those other prisoners we caught. See if you can get anything useful out of them."

As it happened, Bullfinch didn't have any objections. In fact, he heartily approved of it.

"Of course we should do this," he said. "Leaving aside contact with the Migrant Fleet, letting these pirates run around isn't good for us, either."

He grinned. "And besides, _how _much was the initial offer in the file?"

It was enough to keep the outfit running for two months, and Schuder had sent a message off to vas Ryel that they were willing to take the job, but they would need to negotiate on the price. He gave one that was about twenty percent higher than the initial price. That was how the game was played, and he knew that vas Ryel knew it.

Which was why he surprised when the quarian sent an offer that was ten percent higher than the initial offer.

"He really, really wants us to take this job," Schuder muttered. The other three nodded. Usually the next offer the client gave was five percent higher, at most. What was going on here? "I'll send him the standard counter." Seventeen percent higher than the initial.

Schuder's eyebrows flew up when the reply came. _Done. _Attached was a file. A rather large one.

He locked down his omni-tool. He doubted the new client was attempting to hack them, but one never knew. "Ferguson, check this out and make sure the file's safe."

He handed it over to her and she ran a few diagnostics before nodding. "I _think _it's clean. But, well…"

Schuder nodded. Ferguson had some of the best cybersecurity programs he'd ever heard of, but if anyone could sneak past them it would be the quarians. "Activate The Box," he said, and she nodded. "The Box" was a very special computer server—one that was specifically designed to receive information, but not transmit it out.

Once that was done, he accessed The Box, and looked over the file. Now it all made sense. Finally. "Turns out it is a family thing. It looks like these guys grabbed a nephew of vas Ryel's, name of Lor'Tal nar Alarei, while he was on his pilgrimage. His one and only nephew, as it happens. They're holding him for ransom—and he's offering more than a third of the initial offer, if he's returned alive." A hard man, was Zor'Kal vas Ryel. Most men would have started with the ransom issue.

Of course, that brought up some other questions, but Schuder didn't care whether or not his clients had their priorities in order. What mattered to him was that they didn't ask him to do something that clashed with his priorities.

"Bullfinch, set up a course for the Hourglass Nebula, and to Ploitari from the mass relay. As soon as shore leave is up, we're going there." He paused. "Oh, and Kal. Notify Pizarro and Falkenberg to come to the conference room at 0900 tomorrow. That goes for the rest of you too. We have plans to make."

There had been a map included in the file, and one of the features of The Box was that it had a projector. Nothing that went into it ever went out.

Schuder grinned. One of the old jokes about councils of war was that they were never willing to fight. Not his soldiers. He usually had to restrain _them, _which was a problem that he was _happy _to have.

He'd wondered, sometimes, whether or not he could set up an organization like the Blue Suns or Eclipse using his current troops as the core of it. It was certainly possible, but it was probably best to stay the commander of a small-but-elite group known mostly to movers and shakers rather getting famous.

Mostly because the movers and shakers tended not to take it personally unless they'd somehow been betrayed or it was otherwise personal. If their mercenaries came off second-best in a shootout and they lost some assets? They regarded it as the cost of doing business, and might even hire you in the future. They also tended not to ask a lot of questions.

When you got famous, that usually meant ticking off people who took things personally, and people who asked lots of questions started paying attention.

They really couldn't afford that.

* * *

Ploitari was a good system for a pirate base, Schuder thought as they flew into the system. It was uninhabited, but still close to the shipping lanes, and Zanethu was both uncolonizable, which meant no one paid it much attention, and technically inhabitable, so long as someone was willing to put in a minimum of effort to set up habitats and supply lines.

There was also no real reason for anyone to visit the system, which meant that if a ship did show up, it was going to either a fellow pirate, someone coming to take out the base, or someone otherwise up to no good who was unlikely to report to the authorities, which meant that it would be easy to arrange a proper welcoming committee.

Fortunately, Galnora had been given the proper codes, and they were expecting her—in fact, they had been expecting her two days ago, something that the other prisoners had confirmed, along with a few names that would bolster their claim to actually being Galnora's crew. Being late like this could present some issues, but some amount of schedule slippage was normal for operations like this. As long as they had a halfway decent explanation, there'd be no problem.

And they should be getting hailed right about…now.

"Unidentified vessel, this is the _MSV Malacca_. What brings you out here?" asked someone who was probably a turian.

_They're not even being subtle about it, _Schuder thought dryly, _though a turian might think he was being clever_. The Malacca Straits were still one of the most notoriously piracy-ridden shipping lanes on Earth.

Ferguson spoke, using her voice software to make it sound like she was Galnora. With any luck, these schmucks wouldn't know her well enough to notice any differences in her speech patterns.

"MSV _Malacca Straits, _this is the MSV _Iron and Wine,_" she replied. "We've been out for far too long."

"You can say that again," the voice on the end grunted, giving the countersign. "What took you so long?"

"Stupid merchants weren't on schedule," she snarled. "Then it turned out one of their cargo doors was busted, so it took twice as long to shift everything before we scuttled her. Be glad we're only _this _late."

"Easy," the turian on the other end said. "The boss has been crawling up my behind ever since you didn't come in on schedule. You could have called."

"Yes, I should definitely send a message through unsecured channels. Are you stupid?" Ferguson asked, not having to fake her annoyance.

Schuder whistled slightly at that, but decided to let it slide. Criminals were rarely inclined to be courteous to each other, after all.

Besides, the sputtering he could hear was _hilarious. _

"Look, we're coming in right now, with the goods. I hope you're ready for us, considering that you've had two extra days to prepare for our arrival."

The sputtering continued.

"Just give us the landing coordinates. _MSV Iron and Wine _out," Ferguson concluded, shutting off the com link before dissolving into a giggling fit. Schuder took a moment to look at his sergeant before giving her a quelling look, mostly because he knew that she really didn't like the fact that she giggled, and he didn't want her to be more embarrassed than she needed to be.

"Ahem. Sorry, sir," she said as her face turned red.

He smiled slightly. "Having fun, Sergeant?"

"Maybe a little bit, sir."

"Just don't let it get in the way of the mission."

"Yes sir. Of course, sir."

"Good," he replied, and sat back in his chair.

The shooters were all ready to go, and Bullfinch had the GARDIAN systems ready to fire. The _Hawkwood _didn't have a lot of firepower, but it could take out a similar ship with little difficulty. The main problem was that it was fragile, which meant that it could also be easily destroyed.

Fortunately, the lasers were well-concealed and had halfway-decent fields of fire. The _Malacca _would not last long, once the shooting started.

"ETA?"

"Thirty minutes, sir," Bullfinch replied.

"Good man. The ship's in your hands. Sergeant, Lieutenant," he said as he stood up, "it's time we joined the rest in the cargo hold. We load in thirty."

There were many commanders who would have had their troops in the shuttles from the moment they entered the system. Schuder disagreed, for several reasons. First, pirates and freelance mercenaries were notoriously lax about holding to a tight schedule—even corporatized groups like the Blue Suns, weren't military, which meant some laxness was inevitable—so waiting to load up until they were orbiting the planet was part of maintaining their cover. Second, the more time the troops had to prep in the cargo hold, the more time they had to remember anything they might have forgotten. Third, while there were a lot of things to be said for the Kodiak, it was not something anyone wanted to spend a lot of time in when it was fully loaded, and he saw no reason to put everyone through that unless it was necessary.

He could have waited a little while to go down, but truth be told what he knew about space combat was minimal, and Bullfinch would do better without him looking over his shoulder. The key thing, as always, was timing. And the pilot understood that better than he did when it came to space combat.

And besides, he needed to be with the troops before they went planetside. If nothing else, he could keep them from getting jittery. They'd never run an infiltration op before, although if the enemy knew what the composition of Galnora's crew was the fight would start the moment they debarked the shuttles.

There weren't supposed to be any turrets covering the landing pad, but the shotgunners were ready to fire overcharged rounds just in case—and if there were no turrets, they'd make excellent doorknockers, which they'd almost certainly need.

The next forty-five minutes passed largely without event. The _Hawkwood _reached its orbit, and the shuttles launched for the planet, flying like they hadn't a care in the world. Jack Petracci and Amy Iverson were both solid pilots, and they were quite capable of deliberately understating their capabilities to those of your typical mercenary pilot without actually endangering anybody.

Which meant that Schuder was able to observe the base as they got closer, and start filling in the details of the plan for take the base. Even so, the plan would still be a bit sketchy, but they'd have the element of surprise, which would make up for a lot. The headquarters building, where they were presumably keeping their quarian prisoner, was set to one side of the landing pad, while the two barracks buildings were set up on two of the others. The final side was taken up by a training area, which Schuder found slightly worrisome. The last thing he needed was for this crew to be run by someone who could convince pirates to actually put effort into something besides pillage and plunder.

On the other hand, best to nip such a problem in the bud before he became a pirate lord, in any case. Such a one would be attractive to a man like Hock, who fancied himself a visionary.

He cleared his head of far off concerns and concentrated on the matter at hand as the shuttles drifted towards the landing pad, which had one already on it. Through the visual pickups, he saw that the welcoming committee was fairly small, which was a problem. One that they'd anticipated, but it would have been nice if all the pirates had come out to meet them. And, now that they were closer, yes, there were turrets, and he designated those as priority targets for all of the shotgunners. It might be overkill, but they could tear his troops and shuttles to shreds if they were allowed to fire. So, best not to let them.

Falkenberg's squad was given the barracks on one side, Pizarro's the other. The snipers would cover the headquarters and make sure nobody got out of it, and hopefully take out anybody fool enough to poke his head out a window, while the rest cleared out the barracks.

That was the plan, anyway, and there was no time to modify it, because they were about to touch the ground.

Ferguson jumped out first. She had better shields than almost everyone else in the company, and she was female, which meant it was much easier for her to pass as an asari. The pirates swaggered up towards the shuttles as Schuder's troops disembarked—unfortunately, one of them must have known Galnora, because he suddenly yelled, "That's not—"

The tech specialist had had her omni-tool ready, as had Alana and Quill, and every mercenary in sight started doing the "my gun just overheated" dance just before getting cut down in a hail of gunfire as the shotgunners blew the turrets to Hell.

"Take 'em, Bullfinch!" Schuder ordered as he rolled towards the first piece of cover he could find and Petracci and Iverson took off and Falkenberg and Pizarro ordered their squads forward to take the barracks. He wondered for a moment where Kal was until he looked over and saw a rather disgruntled-looking lieutenant looking at him.

"Well, looks like what we anticipated could go wrong went wrong," his second-in-command said dryly. "Now we wait for the unanticipated thing to go wrong."

Not three seconds later, Schuder noticed that the headquarters building had a garage, mostly because the door, which was recessed a bit, started opening. He had just enough time to wonder about what was inside before the door came open enough to reveal an M-29 Grizzly that was already trundling forward.

"Take that thing out!" he yelled. If that thing got the chance to use its turret mounted guns it was all going to be over real quick. As a result, every sniper, including him, took careful aim and overclocked their rifles for a moment to try and break down its shield.

It didn't—quite—drop, but the vehicle stopped, and Schuder dared to hope for a moment that the stop would become a reverse.

It did not, and he bit back a groan. The snipers could eventually break through the armor plating, but that would take awhile, and the gun was already tracking towards where Pizarro's men were breaking through the barracks door—

Four overcharged shotgun rounds tore through the air, all impacting in the exact same spot in the front glacis plate. The vehicle gouted smoke and flame through all of its portals, including the turret, and it slewed to a halt.

That was certainly preferable to the alternative, though he would have liked to salvage the thing relatively intact instead of having a hollowed-out shell. No matter no mind. Grizzlys were easier to find than good troops.

Hopefully the kid hadn't been on there, but he had other concerns. The sound of gunfire was coming from both barracks, but nobody was reporting any casualties yet. That might actually last another few minutes.

This, of course, left the question of whether or not they had a back door out of the headquarters. That, however, was what Petracci and Iverson were for. He took a moment to look up, and, yes, they were still there.

So far, so good.

"Barracks One clear," Falkenberg rasped. "Moving your way."

"Barracks Two clear," Pizarro reported. "Coming out now."

"Good," Schuder grunted. "Bullfinch?"

"Done," the pilot's voice came over the radio. "Never knew what hit 'em. Ran up the white flag after the first shot."

"Ship still functional?"

"It'll take some repairs, but she's flyable."

"Good. Keep watch on them until we wrap things up down here and send something up there."

"Yes sir."

Schuder took a moment to check his HUD. Falkenberg and Pizarro were moving in, and it wouldn't be long before they could set up a perimeter around the HQ. After that, it would be a waiting game, but he was pretty sure they could outwait whoever it was. That wasn't a certainty, mind…

One of the doors was opening.

"Cover that door, and hold fire unless fired upon or told otherwise," he ordered. He wasn't sure what was going on, but somehow he doubted these pirates would come piling out guns blazing. If they meant to go out like that they would've holed up and made him come in after them.

No, they were going to try and make a deal, and he had a really good idea what that deal would look like.

When six figures came out, one a quarian being held by the neck with a pistol to his head, his suspicions were confirmed.

"Best you listen up!" the pirate yelled—turian, by the sound of him. "We're getting off this planet and up into orbit, and we're taking the kid with us."

"What makes you think we care?" Schuder asked coolly. The shotgunners would be useless for this, or close enough to it. They might throw the pirates off a little, anyway.

The turian laughed. "He's the only reason anyone would come here. I know all the tricks, so don't bother playing games with me. Now, here's how it's going to be. My men and I are getting on that shuttle, there, and we're going to rendezvous with our ship. We'll get on that ship, and leave the kid on the shuttle—with a bomb that'll go off if the shuttle's tampered with or it stops receiving a signal before six hours are up."

Schuder felt his eyebrows climb up his forehead. This was…impressively done. The turian was avoiding most of the classic pitfalls of the hostage taker, especially the old question of "how do we know we'll get the hostage back alive if we do what you want." This guy was definitely too smart to let go.

There was, however, a basic problem. "How do we know the bomb isn't set to go off in six hours?"

"Thought you might say that, but I got to ask you—what do you think the odds are that you can kill me and my men without getting the kid dead?"

Schuder looked at his HUD. Bates and Whately were to his left, M'Zangwe and Hawthorne on his right. Each had their target selected, and he designated the last one as his. The pirates had not been smart enough to not stand still.

"Now," he whispered, and five sniper rifles barked as one. The four pirates went down with holes in their helmets, while the leader howled as Schuder's shot blew his hand off. The quarian ducked forward, and Kal slammed a stasis field down around the turian.

"Get the restraints," the biotic ordered, and Quill and Alana ran forward. Kal was strong, but the field wouldn't last more than ten seconds or so. However, that wasn't entirely a bad thing since moving someone who was in a stasis field was well-nigh impossible, and dropping out of a stasis field was…disorienting, to say the least.

Which was why, when the field dropped, the turian dropped with it, and didn't have time to move before his arms were behind his back and he was on the ground.

The quarian, for some reason, did not look pleased at this turn of events.

* * *

Twelve hours later, as the two ships made for the relay, Schuder understood why he hadn't exactly been happy.

Ferguson, Quill, and Alana had spent two hours burrowing into the computers in the headquarters, then another two pulling data from all the omni-tools they'd captured, while the rest of the troops combed through the base for anything useful and secured the _Malacca _and its surviving crewmembers, all of whom were, frankly, gutter-sweepings with no useful information.

The omni-tools and the computers, however, had been much more valuable, at least in a few cases. Some of the pirates' video recordings would end up accounting for a few missing ship reports, and the computers had a treasure trove of information about pirate bases, contacts, and fences.

Unfortunately, there was nothing linking anybody to the real movers and shakers of the criminal underworld. What there was, however, indicated that vas Ryel had been…less than forthcoming…about why Lor'Tal nar Alarei was important to him.

There was nothing definite, of course, but Lor'Tal had apparently been asking questions about the warlords in this sector and their activities—subtly, but not subtly enough, because somebody had lured him out to Ploitari, where the turian, whose name was Ancus Faustus, had captured him sneaking around the base. At that point, Ancus had made his one serious mistake—he had assumed that the quarian was working for vas Ryel, and had sent him a ransom notice, for a bit higher than the contract for Lor'Tal's hide.

It wasn't hard to add up the numbers at that point. His suspicions were correct—vas Ryel worked for the Admiralty Board, and had hired Schuder either for plausible deniability or because his other teams were unavailable and he'd needed to scrape one up on short notice. Perhaps both.

The question was whether or not to hold the information in reserve or tell vas Ryel they knew what he was up to. Probably the former, at least for now, would be his recommendation, but it wasn't his call about whether humanity should open clandestine communications with the Migrant Fleet.

After all, Admiral Hackett ran the Sellsword program, not him.


	2. Old Mistakes

Gregory Schuder looked at the man in front of him in disbelief. "We need to find and kill a slaver?"

"Yes." Lin Kai-Tsang looked distinctly unhappy, which told the captain much. Sellsword depended on secrecy, and while there were few who knew that Lin was involved in Alliance black ops, those few almost certainly included intel officers from the Council races, and if any of them had got wind that he was in these parts they were almost certainly looking for him.

"Why? This is the kind of thing the Corsairs do all the time."

"The operation involves a former asset."

"Ah. Who?"

"I'm not..."

"No." Despite the fact that the Dank Hanar was full of people, he could feel the chill in his voice. "Considering all of the various assets we've used, I need more information."

The handler winced at that. Schuder didn't blame him—divulging information when you were a spy was like getting your teeth pulled without anesthetic. The problem was that Alliance assets, much like those of the other species in Citadel space, occasionally involved stuff that was a lot more like magic than science. The last op Schuder had been on before he went to the Sellsword program had been to retrieve an asset that had gone rogue.

It hadn't gone well. They'd gone in with insufficient intel, and hadn't known the full extent of the rogue asset's powers or that he'd picked up some friends. By the time it was all over, he was one of two survivors from the ten-man team, and their target was presumably dead.

Presumably, because while they never found a body, the explosion had destroyed the building, and no survivors had turned up. The only reason he was still alive was because he'd been thrown out a window. The only other survivor had been the drone operator. In fact, that op had been part of the reason why, when he'd been offered the chance to join the Sellsword program, he'd jumped at it.

Lin sighed. "You know him. The Raven. That's why we're asking you."

Schuder cursed.

* * *

"The Raven?" Kal asked in disbelief.

"Yeah. Matt Corvin himself."

"How did he get out of prison?"

Ferguson spoke. "Sirs, could you please fill me in? Who is this guy?" Bullfinch looked similarly confused, as did Pizarro and Falkenberg.

"Someone I worked with once, a long time ago." He paused. Did the others have need to know? Yeah, they did. If nothing else, the story was a cautionary tale about black ops.

"Kal, how much do you know about this?"

The Russian shook his head. "Only that he did something heinous and twisted that we went to a lot of trouble to cover up."

"True, as far as it goes. This all happened five years back, when I was just getting involved with covert ops."

* * *

Illium was not a good place. That much they'd figured out in a few days. The plan had been to go and scope out the world and figure out opportunities for Alliance business interests to expand—particularly front companies for covert operations.

That wasn't Schuder's business, though he was supposed to look around at the mercenary situation as time allowed. His job, along with Sergeant Jason Farrier, had been to act as the bodyguards for the "business study group."

Most of whom were actually pretty okay. Yevgeny Poroshenko, the lead, was a bit of a slimeball, but a pretty chill one, and seemed to channel his sliminess into doing things for the Alliance. Mara Cruyer, the finance expert, had some issues with maintaining her own personal safety but would follow orders. Ranjit Chamnadgar, the lawyer, was actually a human being, unlike most attorneys. The only fly in the ointment was Enrique Cortez-Pizarro, who did logistics and was an overall pain in the tail.

It had been a relatively easy assignment, until the brass back home took a look at the initial reports. Then the assignment had quickly turned into "set up a front corporation and get business going."

The reason?

Illium was basically what socialists thought an Objectivist society would look like. Apart from things like murder and theft, the only thing that wasn't legal was breaking a contract. Setting up a business was a cakewalk, competition was ruthless, and literally everyone was involved in shady stuff, all of which meant that it was basically covert ops heaven.

So, of course, the covert ops higher-ups had decided to get the ball rolling, and extended the assignment from three months to...indefinitely. And had sent three new guys with a bigger budget. Not to replace the team, but to join them—two soldiers and a civilian.

The soldiers were Colonel Henrietta Riley and Sergeant Miles Cetshwayo, who were supposed to get the Alliance's foot in the door on the security side. The civilian's name was Matthew Corvin, and he was the ace in the hole.

The asari had a reputation for being...promiscuous, was the polite term. While it was somewhat exaggerated, the fact was that they were maniacal exogamists, thanks to their odd reproduction methods, and most of the reasons for why turians, humans, and quarians had their sexual taboos did not apply to asari.

And right now, humans were, well, sort of a fad among the asari. Latest new species, held their own against the turians for a little while, the whole bit. Schuder had experienced the benefits of this in his time on Ilium, among those benefits being the meld.

He still wasn't sure what the meld was, exactly, or how it worked. All he knew was that, the two times he'd experienced it, he'd touched the asari's mind, and she his. And they had communicated through that. What had been communicated was little more than passion—and some important particulars that, in both cases, had made the night rather more enjoyable than it already had been—but they had communicated.

And that was where Corvin came in. He was a honeypot, one who had, apparently, demonstrated the ability to plant ideas in the minds of asari during a meld. The possibilities were endless, quite frankly, and Corvin seemed the type to do it.

By which Schuder meant that he was a charming, handsome, clever sociopath. He'd worked with such before, though, and as long as they believed that tangling with you was more trouble than it was worth you were fine.

However, men like Corvin needed to be watched. If the price was right, he'd sell them out in a heartbeat. He wouldn't let that happen, no sir.

He'd brought up the issue with Poroshenko, who, remarkably enough, agreed with him. Corvin's background check had revealed a long trail of broken promises, hearts, and wallets. But the man was useful, it was impossible to deny.

He saw what the man could do. There was an asari named Massilia T'lora who Poroshenko had been negotiating with over human access to some advanced biotic training camps. T'lora had been determined to protect her company's interests, and had been in the process of driving a hard bargain. That is, until Corvin had found her in a bar and seduced her. That next day, she was much more agreeable. The day after, she was offering to return some of what Poroshenko had conceded. When they finally signed the deal, it wasn't completely one-sided, but it was on much more favorable terms than anyone would have expected.

After that, Poroshenko used Corvin often. Not every time that they did business with an asari, but if she had a reputation for being a hard case Corvin would move in, and shortly the issue would be resolved. It was all very well, but Schuder had an itchy feeling about the whole business.

Normal honeypotting was one thing. This had an extra tinge of wrongness to it, and he wasn't sure why. It wasn't as though the asari in question were innocents—they were all quite ruthless, and being in their positions on a world like Ilium meant that they'd gotten their hands dirty more than once. He'd read their dossiers.

Even so.

However, the first clue he had that something was really wrong came a few months after the deal with T'lora. He was sitting in a bar when he heard the name "Massilia" mentioned. He turned and saw that there were two asari talking, one of whom he recognized as T'lora's executive assistant that she'd brought to the negotiation.

He turned back around and quietly shifted his omni-tool from passive to active eavesdrop.

"—no one was surprised when she asked for a transfer off-world, after she practically gave away the company to the humans. And the higher-ups granted it."

"Why? If you'd done something like that you'd be gone."

"Every other negotiation she'd ever done she did better than anyone thought she would. They just thought Poroshenko had gotten lucky somehow."

"But did something happen?"

"Yes. She never arrived where she was supposed to go. It's been two weeks and the boss is leaning on me hard, like Massilia would've told me anything. I was her secretary, not her friend. I don't think she had any of those. I figure she went off somewhere and offed herself. And good riddance, leaving me with this mess to clean up."

After that the asaris' conversation had turned into the usual grousing about unreasonable bosses, and then into a discussion about their respective love lives. He'd suffered through that to make sure that T'lora's assistant hadn't made some kind of connection to between her boss's odd behavior and Corvin. She hadn't, and in order to get that information he'd had to sit through a comparison between sex with turians and sex with hanar that had left him knowing far more about either species than he'd ever wanted to in his life.

He mentioned it to Poroshenko, of course, but they agreed that it didn't mean much. Someone like T'lora probably wouldn't handle something like what she'd done very well. It had probably ended her promotion prospects, that was for sure, and that was a fate worse than death for an ambitious asari.

Then, about a month later, he saw a news report. A semi-prominent asari had gone missing, and he recognized her as one that Poroshenko had sicced Corvin on. Lillia Garnon, a nasty piece of work. But it was a little odd that people they'd been doing deals with should vanish. Ilium wasn't the safest world, but if you had money and connections you were alright. They needed to look into this.

Fortunately, he'd gotten to know one of the detectives at the local police department. He'd helped her out with a mess involving a volus smuggler, some kidnapped humans, and the mayor's cousin, and with a little judicious use of force had resolved things to everyone's satisfaction.

Over lunch at a cheap cafe, she told him what he needed to know, and a little more besides. Garnon, like T'lora, had requested a transfer off-world after the negotiation had concluded. And, like T'lora, had never shown up at her destination. In fact, there was no record that she'd ever left the planet.

She'd asked, of course, why he was interested. He'd told her that it was because both of the asari who'd gone missing had recently negotiated a deal with his company, and his bosses wanted to know if they needed to warn anyone else who'd negotiated with them in the past.

She'd accepted that. Driving someone out of business by going after anyone who did business with them was considered to be a little on the rough side, but wasn't unknown on Ilium. It was a good thing that she didn't know about Matt Corvin.

He went to Poroshenko, then, and outlined what he'd found. It had been something of a pro forma affair, really, as he'd thought that Poroshenko would tell him to lay off.

Remarkably enough, he didn't. Instead, he told Schuder to keep looking into the matter. As he put it, "if it is Corvin, we need to be the ones to put him down. And if it isn't, we need to eliminate him as a suspect so we can look at who else it might be."

That was a much better response than he'd hoped for, which meant that he started to wonder about what would go wrong.

One of the good things about his assignment was that he had investigative powers, which meant that no one could claim he was acting outside of his scope of authority. He didn't discount the possibility that it was an anti-human extremist or group that was targeting these asari. After all, someone might have drawn the right conclusion about their going home with Corvin and the resultant deals.

Of course, they would have been wrong about why the two were connected, but they would have been right about the linkage. So he did some poking around, and with a few well-placed bribes found out what he wanted to know. Both asari had bought tickets off-world, but neither had made it on board the ship. That simplified things, but this was still Ilium.

There were plenty of ways to disappear, especially if you wanted to. That was his other working theory, that the asari had decided to drop off the grid out of sheer embarrassment. He was inclined to discount it, though. One would think that a few hundred years of life would give enough perspective to not wreck one's life over a bad business deal.

Then again, having watched how Asari behaved, he had come to the conclusion that Asari matured a bit more slowly than humans did. Finding out that the maiden who got...excited...when engaging in carnal activities in a speeding aircar had been alive when the Soviet Union was around did that. It had been a real fun night, but the girl was flat-out insane.

And some of the temper tantrums he'd seen matrons throw were not the sort of thing one expected from the oh-so-wise Asari.

His mouth quirked up in a smile. And they relied far too much on the meld.

At any rate, it wasn't impossible to track anyone, even on Ilium. You just had to catch some breaks, was all. He decided to track Garnon first. T'lora's trail had almost certainly gone cold, and while Garnon's probably had as well, he had a better chance there.

He also activated a search program for the names of the other asari Corvin had been used on. If any of them went missing he wanted to know about it soonest.

As he'd feared, Garnon's trail went cold quick. He'd managed to get surveillance video from the complex where she'd lived, and it just showed her walking out the door and never coming back. He couldn't get anything else, though.

He did some quick checking around, then discovered that she had broken her lease with the landlord. He then did some poking around and figured out where the other potential targets lived, then put a worm in their buildings' systems. If they pulled out of their leases, he'd know about it.

At that point, he had no choice but to wait for something to happen. He really hated this part, though at least he really wasn't worried about either of the asari that he thought were on the list.

Elara Y'kone had been tangentially involved in multiple instances of abusive indenture contracts, usually involving hazardous materials. Fila Canor had been involved in union-busting on multiple planets, usually bankrolling Donovan Hock or one of his ilk as they solved labor disputes by killing the disputants.

No, he'd shed no tears if either of these disappeared.

Even so, it was a month after Galsun's disappearance before something happened. Y'kone broke her lease on her apartment—with quite a hefty penalty, at that. It would have been three months wages for him, before taxes.

He hadn't spent his time idly, though. He had his surveillance set up at the front door of the apartment complex where she resided, and from there he could move his drones around to watch her.

And plant a tracking device. It wasn't much of one, and he suspected that Ilium was probably covered in jammers and breakers to prevent what he had in mind, but this one was pretty high-grade gear.

He found out what her last day was going to be, and on that day he sat in an aircar with Sergeant Farrier on top of one of the rooftops with public parking. And...there she was.

He zoomed in on her, and frowned. She had always had a very intense expression on her face, except for the days immediately after Corvin had gotten to her. She wore a very similar expression to how she'd looked then now. Rather distracted, and like she wasn't entirely herself.

Even so, she moved purposefully, but even so he was able to maneuver the drone into proper position.

Thwip went the little dart, and it hit the side of her neck perfectly. She took a moment to scratch at it, but he wasn't worried that she'd notice anything. Ilium had biting insects.

He also started moving the drones along her possible routes. They were fairly hard to see, but it was best to not surround a target with a swarm of them. He frowned as he looked at her route. The area of the city she was going into had an interesting reputation. The streets were perfectly safe. The buildings were very much not.

Which brought up some very interesting questions about what she was doing there.

She turned aside at one of the buildings, and he moved the drone in. And then she stepped through the door and the tracker stopped signaling.

"Sergeant, start this thing moving."

As the aircar lofted, he attempted to sweep the drone in. It was a small one, so he hoped it might avoid notice. But the door Y'kone had gone through slammed shut just as the machine reached it.

He searched the exterior of the building, looking for a way in. Finally, he found the ventilation system.

He carefully maneuvered the drone through the shaft, while Farrier did some checking around to see if the building's architectural plans were readily available.

They were, and he sighed when he saw them. There were several floors to the building, most of them underground, and while it wasn't a rabbit warren there were more than a few rooms inside. Fortunately, the drone had a few useful features—such as the ability to get Y'kone's smell profile from the tracker, which it had done within seconds after the dart hit her.

He downloaded the plans to the drone, then told it to go find the entrance and then track Y'kone down from there. He hoped that whoever was doing this hadn't thought to put anti-tracking measures in place. Those could cause some serious issues.

He called Poroshenko to give him the word, then the Colonel. He technically didn't have to call the latter, since he reported directly to the former, but it was only polite. Besides, a little back-up might be nice, in the event that it turned out to be some kind of gang.

And even if it wasn't, they would still be helpful, especially if this was where the other two missing asari had gone as well. Of course, that left the question of what he'd do if this came up a bust, but even if it was they'd know more than they did yesterday. And if and when Canor went missing, they could have someone waiting here.

Then, a lucky break. The drone dropped through a vent and caught a whiff of Y'kone's scent. Fortunately, the drone could track how strong the scent was, and it turned automatically towards where she was probably going.

There were no stairs, just gently sloping ramps. It was obviously originally a storage facility of some kind, but one that hadn't been used in some time. He had already discarded the idea that it was a gang.

Then he frowned. There were articles of clothing on the floor. All of them matched the descriptions of the clothes that the missing asari had been wearing—and, yes, there was something Y'kone had been wearing. That was odd. There was something about this that was extraordinarily wrong.

The drone finally caught up with Y'kone just short of a large doorway, probably to the main storage room. Schuder blinked. The asari was...not naked, exactly. No, she was stripped down to her underwear. No. Lingerie. Why on earth was she wearing lingerie? Something was definitely very wrong here.

Then the door opened.

And Schuder realized that his estimate of the worst possibilities were far short of the mark.

This was very, very bad.

He called up Poroshenko again. "We have a very large problem, sir. It _is_ Corvin who's been doing the kidnapping. And I think he's been practicing his talents on the asari he's been ordered to seduce. And not just them."

"What do you mean, Captain?"

"I mean that there are four asari down here, two of whom I'm almost certain are T'lora and Garnon." The drone pinged twice. Matches. "Yes, they definitely are. And there's two others I don't recognize, but I bet if we check them they'll turn up in a missing persons report." He paused. "They're also not wearing a lot of clothes, and they're all kneeling at Corvin's sides."

Poroshenko cursed as Y'kone stepped through the door at some kind of command from Corvin. "I'll get the Colonel over there immediately. If this gets out we'll have no end of problems."

That, Schuder thought as he watched Y'kone prostrate herself in front of Corvin, was an understatement.

He had the drone look around the chamber. He didn't really want to look at whatever self-abasement Y'kone was being put through right now.

Fortunately, it looked like there was only one other exit from the room. He pulled up the schematics and nodded. They'd be able to cut off Corvin's escape.

Of course, there was the problem of what they'd do if it turned out Corvin's control was enough to get those asari to fight for him, in addition to being his...slaves. Then he grinned savagely, and called the rest of the drones to join their brother. This was going to be easier than falling off a log.

* * *

"Thing about the drones is that they could carry multiple types of darts. One of them was a knockout dart. Give the drone a look at the target to calculate weight and determine species, and it delivers the appropriate dose. Fortunately it wasn't far—Corvin was about to get to the main event when he went night-night."

Ferguson winced. "What happened then?"

"Retrieval was easy. The asari were utterly docile and compliant, and Corvin didn't wake up until a few hours later. The two asari I didn't know turned out to be innocents. Each one'd gone clubbing, met Corvin, spent the night with him, and turned up missing a few days later. I guess they were his test runs."

He spat.

"Left us with a tremendous problem. We had at least six mind-raped asari, four of whom had been physically raped, all of it done by a human. And we didn't know how many others Corvin had done this to. Lucky us, he kept a paper diary in his apartment. Names and dates. There were at least half a dozen others."

He spat again.

"Poroshenko sent a report back to Earth asking for a disguised confinement ship before we even brought Corvin in. Meanwhile, I found an asari who specialized in dealing with such things, and was discreet. We brought the maidens to her and told her that we'd rescued them from a slaver. Technically true."

Ferguson nodded. "They didn't know who Corvin was, so they couldn't tie him to you. Of course, there was the problem that the negotiators would remember him."

"Yes. There was that, but it wasn't a problem for long." That had been one of his more...unpleasant duties. It didn't keep him up nights—none of those asari had been anything but evil—but it had never sat well with him, putting a bullet in each of their heads and then dumping them in an industrial incinerator.

Ferguson didn't ask any more questions. She knew the score.

"Luckily," he continued, "the maidens believed me when I said the other three had been picked up by the people who hired me. And the mindfixer, when she checked them, found that triggering Corvin's commands required some very specific inputs that only he could give. So we took care of everyone else, and left Canor alone."

He shrugged. "Maybe we shouldn't have done that, but we couldn't see any way else to keep it secret."

"What happened to Corvin?"

"I wanted to execute him. Poroshenko wouldn't let me. Said he had orders to send him back for trial."

He spat again. "I don't think using him again was Hackett's idea. He always preferred to rid the Alliance of men like that. But there's always been some people in covert ops with more ambition than brains. People like Corvin might look like they'd be useful, but in the end they're nothing but trouble. As whoever brought him in again apparently found out. I wonder how many asari he enslaved this time."

"Who cares?" Bullfinch asked bluntly. "What matters is that we need to take him out."

That wasn't quite right. "We still don't know how far his conditioning goes. If he can get them to fight for him, we're going to have some serious trouble."

Bullfinch winced, as did everyone else at the table, including Ferguson, but her wince wasn't as deep, and she had a speculative look on her face.

"Perhaps it might not be as bad as it sounds on the surface."

"Oh?"

"There's been...research...done into mental conditioning techniques and their effects. One universal is that the greater the degree of control exerted over the subject over time, the less capable of acting without explicit orders the subject becomes. If he's been using them like puppets constantly, they won't be capable of fulfilling any but the simplest orders."

That had some possibilities, and might help explain why Corvin had put triggers into the minds of more asari than he'd taken. He wouldn't want to have exert total control over them except in bed.

For that matter, he thought with a shudder, it would also be a useful coercive measure. Do as I say or I'll mess your head up so bad you'll be a meat puppet forever. Of course, that assumed he'd do such a thing, but they already knew he raped bodies and minds.

And of course he was back on Ilium. And there was the other issue.

"How did he end up back in the field?" Kalencka asked. "Even acquitted, those kind of charges should have kept him out of this kind of thing."

Ferguson shook her head. "Like the captain said, black ops logic. There's a certain school that likes having guys like Corvin around because they don't ask pesky moral questions."

"Either way. Bullfinch, set course for Ilium. The rest of you stay here. We need at least some kind of preliminary plan by the time we get there."

When they arrived at Ilium, they had three different contingency plans depending on where Corvin had set himself up. The hard part, they thought, would be finding where on the planet he was.

That turned out to be the least difficult part of the problem. His team was still on Ilium, and they knew where they'd lost track of him. It was also the area where asari were disappearing.

That sounded like Corvin.

However, the team he's been one was exactly the sort of people who reminded him of another reason why he'd gone to the Sellsword program. There, at least, you got some choice in who you worked with. These guys he didn't want anywhere except directly in front of him, and none of them were people he'd really want on a long-term mission—or any kind of mission that wasn't on the order of "The Dirty Dozen."

The team leader he'd known back in the day. Carlos Ortiz had been a good sergeant on the battlefield, but off of it was worse than useless.

The others he'd looked up. All of them had criminal records, all of them had good combat records and efficiency reports, and all had been removed from court custody by an Orpheus Timson. In other words, a thoroughly expendable black ops group.

Who showed no signs of being a thoroughly expendable black ops group. In fact, when he looked at their headquarters, it seemed like they were settled in for the long haul.

Something wasn't right here.

It didn't add up to anything he liked, that was for sure.

Of course, Ortiz's attitude didn't help. It was pretty obvious that, if it weren't for the fact that Corvin had dropped off the map, he wouldn't give two cares about the missing asari.

"Putas, all of them," he said flatly. "Oh, some of them can fight well enough, but putas they are, and this is Ilium. Probably just signed a bad contract."

The others with him nodded, and that got Schuder to thinking. However, he'd have to pursue his suspicions another time, because they needed to get to Corvin.

However, Ortiz didn't seem anxious to find him, which again, made no sense. The more time Corvin had out of sight, the more time there was for him to tell someone about his team on Ilium, willingly or unwillingly.

But no matter. Ortiz had given him a place to start, at least, and he sent Ferguson a file of Y'kone's walk through the city and asked her to see if she could find footage of asari walking like she had.

Ferguson thought she, Quill, and Alana could set up an algorithm to filter for it, but it might take some time. Hacking the security cameras pointed at the streets and downloading their contents had apparently been child's play, although if they'd tried to delete the data it would have been much harder.

In the meantime, he set to finding out what he could about where the various asari had disappeared from. The first ones he checked on were the ones who'd been listed in Corvin's journal. All of them were still around, except Calnor. She'd been killed by a speeding aircar about two months after her negotiation.

Once he got to the ones who'd gone missing since Corvin had returned here, he noticed that it fit with what Ortiz had told them about where Corvin had vanished. All of the missing asari were from the area, anyway, and all of them were regular clubgoers. Or, they had been.

When he got in contact with one of the local detectives, whose name was Enera Falda, she mentioned that someone had gone missing whose kind usually didn't.

"Her name is Laisa T'yari," she said. "She's a midlevel executive with one of the local service providers. Has some peculiar tastes, ones that are usually a bit expensive."

That was one of the politer ways of saying that she was perverted enough that even Ilium escorts, who were known for being open minded sorts, wanted some serious money for their services.

"Three nights ago, she contacted a number that turned out to be a burner phone. Security camera footage showed two asari, who, it turns out, matched perfectly with two of the missing ones, going into the building. They came back out a few hours later...somewhat the worse for wear. Two nights later, she vanished."

Good riddance, Schuder thought, but instead said, "I take it this got the powers that be on Ilium concerned?"

"No. What concerned them was that, right before she vanished, she downloaded every database she had access to at her job to her omni-tool."

Well that was interesting. But hardly the sort of thing one would...wait...

"You said service provider. I take it that includes security services, in addition to food and bathroom supplies and such."

"Yes. And T'yari was in charge of the security services division."

Now things were starting to come together.

"Did she do anything else?"

"Yes. She cleared out her bank accounts. Quite a sum, over 200,000 credits."

He nodded, thanked her, and left.

Almost immediately afterward, he called Ferguson and told her to look for a Laisa T'yari, find her apartment building, check the cameras there for her, then work her way out.

It made a certain amount of sense. A midlevel executive gone missing all by herself would cause comment. But amidst a string of other disappearances? Wrong place, wrong time. But then why do the stupidly obvious thing and have her download her files onto her omnitool in the office?

No matter. Find Corvin, and those questions would become irrelevant. Then hopefully the team he was with would be called back and terminated, in the literal sense.

Because this smelled of a rogue op, to him, and he wondered what sort of stupidity he'd just stumbled into.

He'd put the men on watch-and-watch for shore leave, with orders not to go more than three blocks out. That didn't really restrict their options, reminded them they were still on call, and meant that they were in easy reach if needed.

Which was good, because it was entirely possible that there would be a fight.

"All right, listen up," he announced. "Get ready to go. Hostage situation, so load mostly nonlethal. Snipers excepted."

"Sir?"

"Corvin might be our only active opposition, but he might not be. Either way, there shouldn't be much, but it will be there, and we'll need to get rid of it quick. Like I said, hostages."

Schuder paused for a moment. "There may be coerced opposition."

"How so, sir?" Hawthorne asked.

"Unknown at this time. Just bear it in mind. If the target dies it shouldn't be a problem."

He hoped so, anyway. While he doubted any of the kidnapped asari who were still functional would keep following Corvin's orders if they thought there was another option, Stockholm Syndrome was a possibility. Also, if there were any that had been...rendered non-sapient, they might keep going afterwards or they might not.

Ferguson had been frustratingly vague on that point, and he didn't think it was because she knew something she wasn't telling him. The only people he could think of who might have been willing to experiment like that were batarians or some of the Terminus warlords.

He frowned for a moment. How had Ferguson know even what she'd told him about it? Forget that, how did anyone know about it? Corvin had to be some kind of freak of nature. There couldn't be that many more like him.

That question, however, was above his pay grade and led to some very dark places. Right now, he needed to focus on finding Corvin and getting rid of him.

He wondered how long it would take to localize him. He didn't think it would take long

As it turned out, he was right. There was even more security camera coverage than there had been a few years ago. All private, but most companies didn't have good cybersecurity.

It didn't take long for them to pinpoint the location, fortunately, and true to form it was yet another abandoned warehouse in a not-very-great part of town. Unfortunately, Corvin had apparently learned from the previous time.

All the ventilation shafts were tightly gridded, and it would be well-nigh impossible to cut through them quietly. Also, all the doors had security cameras on them.

Then Alana had the idea to run the drones up through the sewer system. At which point they hacked into the owners' files and got a copy of the plans.

And, as it turned out, there was a line that they could fit a drone through. He really wasn't sure why someone would want an indoor pool in a warehouse like this, and suspected that the answer would probably be one he wouldn't like.

He wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth, however, and within an hour the tiny drone had made it to its destination. Where it had immediately found one of the reasons why someone would want an indoor pool in an underground warehouse.

Specifically, orgies. Corvin hadn't wasted any time. Once he managed to get a count, he realized that the numbers didn't match up. Fortunately, there were more asari here than were counted missing rather than less, but that did not say good things about Ilium.

However, despite the fact that all of the asari here were engaging in extraordinarily vigorous coital activities that would have required ropes and whatnot if they didn't have biotics, Corvin was nowhere to be found.

Which was...odd. Then Ferguson noticed that while most of the asari were wearing little metal collars, some were not. That was also odd.

Then they flew the drone up through the room's one entrance and exit and into what was almost an exact replica of the throne room Corvin had had the first time. Except gaudier and more ostentatious. And with—yes, there were two of the members of the black ops team.

Then he noticed the two asari standing in front of the throne, and saw that both were fully clothed. One of them had her omni-tool out and was typing something into it.

"Alana, see if you can ID that asari."

"Yes sir," he replied, even as he downloaded the picture to their database of notables, which included members of every corporation on Ilium down to the supervisors, every officer of every mercenary company, and all the gang leaders.

It took fifteen seconds to come up with a match. Kana T'foro, head of security services for one of the bigger corps on Ilium. Known for ruthlessness and unscrupulousness in an environment where both were considered minimal job requirements, she also had some very unsavory personal habits.

Habits that made her a perfect customer for Corvin. A thought Schuder revised when Corvin made a "come forth" gesture to someone behind the throne, and T'Yari, chained and naked, came into view.

It made a lot of sense, from a financing standpoint, if you were a psycho like Corvin or Ortiz. T'foro would have gone for the deal if all she'd been able to get was the secrets in T'Yari's head and in her omni-tool. She'd probably paid extra for the black ops team to turn her rival over to her instead of keeping her for themselves.

And that explained the asari downstairs. There were always perverts, and something told him Ilium had a higher percentage than normal of control-freak psychos with money to burn. As he thought about it, all of the asari without collars had looked like they were giving orders instead of taking them.

They might be a problem when they took down this place. And, for that matter, that brought up a very interesting question. Asari were okay with somewhat esoteric sexual practices, but consent was a bright line for them. If they found out that someone was involved in this kind of thing—well, there could be painful consequences. Blackmail was also a potential revenue source—or source of favors.

Right now, however, they needed to do two things. Find the main entrance, and then find out how the black ops boys and girls were getting in and out. Because even if they didn't want in on the action, he thought sourly as he saw T'foro bring T'Yari to her knees, they would want to keep an eye on Corvin.

Fortunately, it didn't take long to find either. Alana had simply hit T'foro with a tracker and then kept the drone in the throne room until one of the black ops squad left. Then he'd used the drone to follow her out.

Of course, it was likely that there were more exits than that one, but that one was probably the route the black ops crew would take if someone came busting down the front door.

That meant it was time to bring Corvin down.

The plan was pretty simple. One squad, Falkenberg's, would come in from the top, led by Kal. If Corvin was like most people who did his sort of thing, he and the others would run.

At which point they would run into Pizarro's squad, backed by the snipers and Schuder. With any luck, some of his clients would be with him. He wasn't sure if he hoped to take them alive or not.

He hoped they could take out Corvin before Kal ran into his thralls. The man seemed like the type to throw them at any attackers to cover his retreat. Then again, if they knew Corvin was running, they might not fight at all—and as to the ones reduced to meat puppets, it might be kinder to kill them. There wasn't much else that could be done with them.

Well, maybe the asari would try and rehabilitate them.

Either way, he'd told Kal to do what was needful, and he'd take full responsibility for whatever happened. He knew the man wouldn't go on a killing spree.

And it was about to start...now. For one thing, they'd moved the drone back to the throne room, and right now the occupants were quite distracted.

"Go!" he heard Kal call out, and the door blew inward and away. There was no one in the corridor, and no traps.

They pounded down the stairs, and Schuder smiled as he saw the look on Corvin's face change from bliss to horror as the alarms went off. He wasn't alone in that—two of the black ops squad were also recreating.

They roughly shoved the enslaved asari who'd been pleasuring them away and started buttoning up their clothes hastily. Corvin issued orders, and a half-dozen asari started moving mechanically towards the stairs.

"Kal. Six thralls."

"I'll be ready, sir."

Schuder nodded. Karl's biotics wouldn't be powerful enough to take out all six, but they would hold off any attacks long enough for the rest to take the thralls out.

Meanwhile, in the other drone's feed, he saw Corvin and the other black ops troops running for the secret entrance, along with several half-dressed but uncollared asari. He wondered why there wasn't anyone else there, then realized that Corvin had probably been charging top dollar, the kind of money that only high executives could afford.

It was entirely possible that there were going to be a lot of promotions in the near future among Ilium's muckety-mucks.

Just in case any of them got away, he made a mental note to make sure to run facial recognition searches. And to nail that psycho T'foro to the wall. He'd shed no tears if she offed T'yari, but she needed killing.

He took careful note of the drone's location as it followed the fugitives. Almost...

"Sir, we have a problem. Those thralls have set up a biotic barrier across the hallway."

That was a problem, but not an insurmountable one.

Then Alana came on the com. "Sir, it looks like someone turned the water on downstairs and sealed the door to the inner pool shut with all of the slaves inside. According to the computer, that room's going to be full in ten minutes."

"Can you shut it off?"

"Yes sir, but it'll take fifteen minutes at least."

Schuder thought furiously. If the asari locked downstairs set up a barrier against the water, it would extend the time by another few minutes, but only so much air would fit. Also, he didn't think any of them would think if it, considering what had been happening down there.

Right then, the secret door opened and the fugitives stumbled out into the street, and there was no time for precision. "Take 'em fast," Schuder ordered, thoughts of prisoners forgotten in the need to get inside NOW.

His troops were well trained, and they walked their fire back to front, cutting down those closest to the door first and cutting off retreat. Corvin, out in front, was the last to fall.

"Snipers, secure the area. The rest of you, follow me!" And with that, he ran for the door. At least there wasn't any indication that they'd laid booby traps behind them. They'd probably counted on any attackers to go rescue the slaves they'd left to drown.

Well, that hadn't worked out for them. At least it wasn't more than a five-minute run from the bolt hole exit to the pool. He thought, as he jumped down from the roof he'd been hidden on, that he and his men could do it in four.

As it turned out, it was a little bit over four minutes by the time they reached the door. Schuder snarled when he got a good look at it. Those doors looked like their circuits had been burned out.

Of course. They'd want to make it as difficult as possible for any potential rescuers to get in.

"Alana, specs on the door?"

"Standard, sir. And I doubt these clowns reinforced it."

"Jaroslav, standard door," Schuder said quietly. As the demo expert went to the door, he called Alana again.

"Progress on shutting off the water?"

"It's going, but my initial estimate was good. At least seven minutes. Maybe longer."

That would make things more difficult. Any intel they could get from down here would be invaluable.

"Alana, seal all the doors leading out of the...throne room...except for the one leading to the hallway where Kal is. I want their quarters intact, but I don't feel like drowning today either."

"Yes sir. Sealing them now...done."

"Jaroslav?"

"Ready, sir."

"Good. Here's the plan. We're going to blow the door—hopefully the water hasn't reached it yet. Then we get everyone inside out here and run for the surface before the water fills this place up. Quilpan, Omarosa, you're in front.

"Kal, did you get all that?"

"Yes sir. Their barriers are weakening—one of them just fell over. She might be dead. I'll bet Corvin just told them to hold the barrier until they passed out."

"Probably. We'll be coming up behind them, so stop shooting when you see us."

"Understood."

"Good. Jaroslav!"

The charges went off, burning a neat arch in the door, and Schuder suddenly remembered that the door would fall away from the explosion and cursed himself for his stupidity.

Then the door fell back towards them, and he saw the line leading back from it to Jaroslav, and blessed his decision to pick him. It was always nice to have subordinates who could cover your mistakes.

Unsurprisingly, a mass of panicked naked asari came through the door immediately afterward, nearly bowling him and the others over. Fortunately, they didn't quite manage it, and it was less than a minute before they had everything sorted out.

A few of them didn't have collars. Those were trussed up on the floor. The ones who did were practically throwing themselves at his troops and thanking them for the rescue—all except one.

She, the most coherent of the lot, was talking to Schuder as the water came into the throne room. Before he even asked, she said "yes, those without collars were clients, not prisoners." She smiled unpleasantly. "They were most unhappy about being left to die. I must admit, if you hadn't shown up I intended to kill at least one before I drowned."

Schuder grimaced a little, but if you knew you were going to die you might as well go out taking down your rapist. He looked at her carefully. "Did he install any booby traps?"

She understood what he meant. "I don't think so. But you might not want to take these collars off of us until we've been checked."

"Those have a purpose?"

"Yes. Damping collars. None of us can use our biotics until they're off." Her face twisted. "They also have...other modifications. For conditioning purposes."

Schuder winced.

The asari looked at the pool room, then looked away.

"There is one more thing," she said quietly. "The ones who have no minds of their own. Kill them. Please. They're dead women walking."

Schuder hesitated. "I make no promises."

The asari shuddered. "I saw them, before and after he did his work. He twisted all of us, but those he broke, when they showed too much defiance."

Schuder looked down. The water had gone up another inch. "We should go."

"Yes, we should."

They moved down the hall quickly, as the waters rose behind them. The formerly enslaved asari were in the back, followed by two of his mercenaries.

That group followed Corvin's clients, surrounded by six troops. Then, in front, he and the rest led the way.

"Sir," he heard Kal's voice over the radio, "another one just died."

"How are the others?" Please, he thought, let me be spared this choice.

"Flagging, sir, but they don't look like they'll fall soon."

Schuder cursed silently. "I think we're about to turn the final corner. Get ready to hold your fire."

"Yes sir."

When they came around the corner, Schuder took a moment to look at the scene. The four asari still on their feet gave no sign of noticing him or his men, or the water that was swirling about their ankles, or the two that had fallen into the water.

Instead, they simply stood there, hands thrust forward, maintaining the barriers blocking the hallway.

Kal and his squad were on the other side and he spoke into the radio. "Keep your men on the sides of the hallway, Kal. I'm going to try something."

Kal's troops ducked to the sides.

Schuder looked at the asari for a moment. He'd talked with Ferguson about this before he left the Hawkwood, and knew that studying their brains might be useful. On the other hand...

He looked at the asari, realized that he didn't even know her name and that he should probably ask, and her eyes pleaded with him.

It would probably be better this way. After the first time he'd dealt with Corvin he'd stopped trusting the Alliance to always do the right thing. And the wrong thing in this case was nearly anything.

"Open fire," he said quietly.

* * *

The post-op cleanup took a considerable amount of time. Corvin had taken many more victims this time, all of whom needed considerable therapy. Fortunately, he still had the contact information for the mind-fixer they'd used last time, and he'd sent all of the rescued asari to her once they'd given their statements to the cops.

T'yoni had been retrieved immediately after they got out of the underground base and gotten the rescued asari to safety, before T'foro could start in on her, and the latter had been captured alive, and they'd been able to convince the local cops that it had been a rescue mission, especially once they produced the other slaves. So that had taken care of that.

Meanwhile, on the information front Alana had managed to drain Corvin's hideout, and had spent the next several hours going through Corvin's computers. Unfortunately, those of the black ops squad who were still alive had already fled, and what they hadn't taken with them they'd destroyed. Corvin's records made up for the lack, though.

One good thing was that they hadn't drained everyone's accounts right off, and the ones who had been drained were easy enough to restore from the accounts of the dead asari customers, whose omni-tools Ferguson had hacked as soon as she'd gotten to the area, which meant that at least the victims would get some kind of compensation for their trauma.

That issue having been dealt with, Ferguson had then discovered that the black ops crew had made some serious cash investing their ill-gotten funds, and they'd managed to take all the information with them on how to access it.

To add to that, the crew of the _Hawkwood _still had no idea what Ortiz's endgame plan was besides rape and steal and wreak general havoc on Ilium. Then again, Ortiz was the sort to think that was just fine and dandy. Of course, the question was who would have put a man like him in charge of a operation that would require delicacy.

Of course, Corvin had been a necessary part of the operation thanks to his mind rewrite abilities. But why let him indulge his appetites? This had all the hallmarks of rogue black ops, but why use a team like this one? Answer: if you wanted to make it look like they'd gone rogue on their own without any prompting.

Unfortunately, Corvin's records had no information about who their mysterious patron had been, and further records checks revealed that Timson had officially died three months ago, just after he'd gotten Corvin out. The only larger prey they'd been able to grab was the asari who'd purchased T'yoni, while the rest had just been the usual wealthy perverts.

The asari who'd bought T'yoni hadn't been much help, however. She hadn't thought beyond the opportunity to get info on a business rival and get revenge on a personal one.

As a result, the report he had to send to Hackett was somewhat disappointing, as far as he was concerned. They'd done what they were sent to do, and there was nothing to tie anything to the Alliance other than Corvin. But it was obvious that there was some skullduggery going on to create chaos among the asari.

The question was, why, and who was behind it?

Then he frowned. There was something...yes, that was it. That manifesto somebody had written a few years ago. The reporters had called the writer "an illusive man." And there had been that intel report a few months ago about a terrorist talking about getting orders from someone called "The Illusive Man"—TIM.

And a name like Timson...yes. Now it all made sense. Someone like that probably wouldn't have any problems with letting someone like Corvin loose on the asari. He probably didn't share Ortiz's attitude, but he'd shed no tears about them being used like that, either.

And it would explain why the plan seemed to be "pit the asari against each other and maybe get some blackmail material." If you saw power balances as a species matter and a zero-sum game, anything that created discord among the asari would put humanity in a better position.

Of course, the possibility that other parties, like the turians, barbarians, or salarians might be in a better position to take advantage of such had probably escaped them. Then again, he mused, maybe that was part of the plan too.

He sighed. He'd take any opportunity offered to get the Alliance an advantage. If you didn't look out for your own interests, no one else would. In fact, he'd helped create a few opportunities, here and there. But there were some things you just didn't do. If asari commandos working for the Republics had discovered what Corvin had done, it would have come back to bite humanity hard. And besides, using someone like Corvin was just...sick.

He really hoped his report would convince Hackett to start poking around to look for Timson and whoever his patrons might be. Who knew what else such men might be willing to do in order to make humanity the leading species in the galaxy?

He didn't, and he didn't want to find out when they did it.


	3. Strike!

Schuder leaned back in his chair and considered his options for a moment. They were between contracts, and right now there were a lot of jobs available with this increase in geth activity. Apparently after three hundred years of isolation they were starting to probe beyond the Perseus Veil.

The big companies were farming out teams and squads to anyone who wanted a little extra security blanket—it didn't take access to the data Schuder had to know that a squad of mercs wasn't going to stop a geth attack—and that meant they had less available manpower for the jobs that the _Hawkwood_ was suited for.

Most of them he'd discarded immediately. He'd take on a strikebreaking job if Hackett ordered him to or it was being fomented by enemies of the Alliance. Otherwise, he'd almost rather starve. Working for strikers was right out, too, mostly because when labor groups had the kind of money necessary to hire mercenaries it usually meant someone was providing outside funding.

And that tended to produce complications, because while usually it was just a corporation trying to undercut a rival, sometimes it was political. And when it got into politics, things got dicey. They'd nearly gotten suckered into working for a batarian-backed strike once.

Once he'd eliminated those from the search criteria, there were only about half a dozen jobs in the area, and one leapt out at him immediately. vas'Ryel was looking for people to do a job for him, one that seemed almost perfectly tailored to the _Hawkwood_.

He grinned. Apparently the old boy wanted to talk. It had been six months since they rescued his nephew, and if the quarian hadn't done some poking into their history before and after that incident Schuder would be shocked.

It was also a lucky break. He'd just gotten orders from Hackett that he was to try and cultivate contacts with the quarians—including vas'Ryel. While a minor power in the grand scheme of things, they probably understood the practical aspects of mass effect tech better than anyone else.

He sent a quick response to vas'Ryel, then commed the bridge.

"Bullfinch, to Pamyat, if you would. I want us there as soon as possible."

When they dropped into the Pamyat system, he wasn't surprised to see that there was a reply from vas'Ryel with a meeting time and place. It was the same restaurant where they'd met the first time, and he didn't know what he thought about that.

Tradecraft wise, it was a debatable choice. On the one hand, it was some of the most neutral ground in the system. On the other hand, they'd been there before. Admittedly, it had been a few months, but still.

He shrugged. He'd mention it when he got there, but it wasn't really until you met three times in the same place that people started asking questions.

And besides, the place knew how to cook human food pretty well. He wondered if they'd expanded their repertoire.

It didn't take long to reach the station and dock—the _Hawkwood_ was known there, and for spending good credits and not giving station security trouble. From the dock, it was a fifteen minute walk to the place, and Schuder wondered how many loitering quarians would be in the area. Then again, a few of his crew would be there too.

He counted two outside, both obviously occupied in doing something, as were the two from the _Hawkwood_. vas'Ryel was already inside, two menus on the table. He didn't look agitated, but those suits and masks were good for more than just protection.

"Captain Schuder," he said. "Come, sit. We can talk over our meal. I will pay."

Once the captain had sat down, the quarian leaned forward and whispered quietly, "There are delicate matters to discuss."

Once he had ordered—something different this time, an asari dish he couldn't quite pronounce, he didn't want to become too regular in his habits—and they both had their food, vas'Ryel began to speak.

"I didn't tell you everything. This job isn't for me, but for a friend of mine."

"Indeed?" It was not unheard of for such to not be a lie, but it was rare. Quite rare indeed. And when it was true, usually the person asking had some stake in the matter.

"He is moving a cargo of weapons for the Blue Suns, they're providing security, and he suspects that they aim to cheat him by pirating the ship and stealing the cargo."

That was a common enough scam among fly-by-night mercs, but why would the Blue Suns try it? It wasn't as though they were hard up for cash. So why go to all the trouble?

"Why would they do that?"

The quarian leaned forward. "Because of what the shipment actually is. It's not your usual weapons. It's batarian riot control gear."

Schuder stiffened. Batarian weapons were usually not that good—inaccurate, inefficient, and incapable. Except for their riot control gear. That was extraordinarily effective, and extraordinarily cruel.

"Did your friend know when he took the cargo?"

Vas'Ryel shook his head. "One of the crates was poorly made and broke open when cargo shifted during a turn."

Schuder nodded. Typical Batarian workmanship. And...yes. Out here in the Terminus systems, such things were not illegal, and many a warlord and corporation bought them.

And he could not let that cargo go out into the wilds.

"Where is he?"

"This is his last stop before his supposed destination. Trident, in the Hoplos system."

"Does he want the _Hawkwood_ or just the troops?"

"Both. But he is willing to let you deploy them as you see fit. He's...somewhat desperate."

That was unsurprising. Schuder would be too, if he was in the captain's shoes. If this were Council space, the captain could have notified the authorities. Out here, if he didn't want to end up a corpse he'd need something like the Hawkwood.

"Well, tell him we'll take the job. Standard contract. He can cover the half now?"

"I'm covering that part. There is another wrinkle."

"Oh?"

"He wants prisoners."

Schuder shrugged. "I thought as much. Easily done. Give me the ship name and the captain's name, and I'll be on my way. We can hash out the details of the contract on my way there."

"Of course. Keelah se'lai, Captain."

Schuder didn't know much about quarians, but he knew that what vas'Ryel had just said was both farewell and benediction—and that he hadn't said it after their first meeting.

Very interesting, he thought as he headed back to the _Hawkwood_.

Once he hailed the vessel—_Arcrix's Folly_, commanded by Vesalius Kanan, a Turian from Palaven-he made his decisions quickly, mostly because he could feel the tension on the bridge of the other ship, particularly between Kanan and the Blue Suns commander, a silent Batarian.

It was pretty obvious that while the Blue Suns hadn't taken over the ship, they were about to do so. He decided to roll the dice a little.

"Command sent us a little early. There's been geth sightings in the area, and they thought you could use some extra firepower."

The Blue Suns lieutenant nodded, and Schuder appraised him carefully. Had he bought it? If he didn't, the boarding party was going to be greeted by a hail of gunfire, and he didn't want that.

He seemed to have, though. With any luck, they would be in the ship before the Blue Suns knew what was happening.

But he knew not to trust to luck.

As the shuttle came to a gentle halt against the hatch, Schuder looked back at the squad he had with him. This wasn't where he should be, but it was where he needed to be.

The doors opened, and he discovered that his hopes had been dashed. The Blue Suns commander hadn't been fooled, and the squad covering the hatch opened fire the moment it slid open.

Not that it mattered much, because Kal had slammed up his strongest barriers the moment the hatch had shown a crack, everyone on the shuttle was prone or kneeling except for the two officers, and the barrier was only chest-high.

And Schuder had thrown two frag grenades with high explosive mods over the barrier the moment he saw the welcoming committee.

The sound of their explosion echoed in the confined space as they blew the Blue Suns squad all over the entryway, and finished off Kal's barrier as well. His shields held, however, as did those of everyone else aboard.

Schuder stepped into the room. Ordinarily this would have been a very bad idea, but his armor's sensor suite was the best out of all of them, and the Blue Suns were all down, though some were starting to get up.

That simply would not do, but killing them out of hand...

"Drop your weapons!" He snapped out as he raised his pistol to firing position.

The two in front of him dropped their guns to the floor and raised their hands, just as the first bullet from behind slammed into his right shoulder.

He should have...

Three more shots sounded from behind him, and he heard someone crumple back to the floor from the direction of the shot. The surviving mercenaries stood there, frozen, and he smiled savagely. They couldn't see it, but it did put him in the proper frame of mind.

"Now how many of you are there?" he asked in a low growl that had them both shaking a little.

"Just us!" the woman exclaimed. "Well, just us and Brixius and his two bodyguards. He wasn't going to send them down here."

The man nodded agreement. "They're probably on the bridge. He'll be asking for a sitrep soon."

Then a radio crackled, and a harsh voice came over it. "What's going on down there? Report, damn it!"

Schuder spoke. "Move."

He'd known that his troopers wouldn't wait in the shuttle, and he'd been right.

He'd also known that they would be spoiling for a fight. They pelted past him as fast as they could run, bowling over the two Blue Suns as the hatch hissed open.

It was but three seconds after that Schuder heard a hail of gunfire. Brixius must have sent his bodyguards out as soon as he didn't get an immediate answer.

However, they were no match for Schuder's crew, and it was only a few moments before the firing stopped and he stepped into the corridor.

That just left the Blue Suns commander, and if he hadn't taken the bridge crew hostage Schuder was a monkey's uncle. They'd have to take this nice and careful.

Of course, that would require him to let them. And that was not a guarantee. If he decided to bust out of the bridge with a hostage, they'd be hard-pressed to bring him down without killing the hostage.

As a result, he wasn't surprised when the batarian stepped out with the captain in front of him, and that he was holding a pistol to his head. He was surprised that the first officer was coming out behind them, his back to both.

Then he saw that both were close-locked to the commander's armor, and he sighed. This was going to be...difficult.

"Drop your weapons or I'll shoot him. I swear I will."

"No, you won't," Schuder replied. "If you kill him, you'll die in the next instant." He waved a hand. "My crew is quite accurate."

The batarian stopped for a moment, then realized that he had a point, and Schuder could see that he'd been thrown off-balance a little bit. He quickly recovered.

"All right, that might be true. But I'm leaving here in my shuttle, and you're not going to stop me. You can't shoot me without risking these two."

That was also true.

Unfortunately, there was a problem with his reasoning. Schuder had Kal, and it had been long enough for him to recover from holding the barrier.

"Alana. Kal."

That was all the signal they needed. Alana overloaded the batarian's shields, and as they fizzled and he cried out in alarm Kal dropped a singularity right next to him.

Finding himself unexpectedly dangling in the air, he dropped his pistol, and within seconds several of Schuder's soldiers were on him and his captives. Soon, the officers were on their feet, while the mercenary glared up at his captors from the floor.

"So now you have me," he said with a sneer, "what will you do with me?"

Schuder smiled unpleasantly. "I could have you shot out of hand as a pirate. I don't think any inquiry would include a trial, once the captain gave his testimony."

Batarians didn't go pale, but if you knew anything about them it was easy to see when a stroke had gone home. The mercenary had obviously not thought about that part.

"Of course, I could be persuaded to let you off the hook. If you were sufficiently helpful."

"What sort of help?" The batarian asked.

"Simple. The system where you were supposed to meet your reinforcements and take over the ship, and the recognition codes."

"And if I give them to you?"

"Once this is done I'll set you down at the next system, with everything you own. If you don't, you'll have a bullet in your head when you leave the ship. Understand?"

The mercenary nodded vigorously. He knew that Schuder was telling him that if the intel was bad he was a dead man. And batarians weren't known for their loyalty, though ones who grew up outside the Hegemony tended to be more so than those who'd escaped.

It was going to be interesting to see which one this guy was.

It took him about five seconds to start spilling the beans on just about everything. In fact, the only thing he didn't know was the true final destination of the cargo.

It was entirely possible that there wasn't one yet. The Blue Suns tended to overconfidence, he'd found over the years, but even they wouldn't try and sell goods that weren't in their possession yet. That kind of thing tended to cause problems.

However, it was more than enough information to set up a nice little ambush for the Blue Suns' reinforcements. Someone needed to show them that this kind of thing was bad business.

Besides, the salvage potential was fantastic, especially once they got to the cargo's actual destination. Their contract also included at least finding, and if possible, taking out whoever was buying batarian riot control gear.

That was an addendum he and vas'Ryel had agreed on very easily, and none of his mercenaries had objected to. He planned on turning the gear over to his handler on the next visit. He did not want that stuff in the _Hawkwood_'s hold for long.

However, they'd have to run the ambush on the Blue Suns very carefully, because they weren't stupid, usually, and he wanted to make sure that they got whatever craft they were using. For this part of the mission, salvage was not a priority. He wanted the Blue Suns to know that mucking around like this was a bad idea, but he didn't want it noised about that the _Hawkwood_ was involved.

Blowing up a Blue Suns vessel was the cost of doing business. Blatantly selling it was quite another, and was the kind of thing they would have to Do Something About. Although he could turn it over to the Alliance...but then crew became an issue.

No, best to just destroy it and have done. They'd need everyone they had for when they had to take out whoever was buying this stuff. Those idiots were going to get hammered quite thoroughly, if he had anything to say about it.

Which was why the _Hawkwood_ was on the far side of the cargo ship from where the Blue Suns craft was supposed to be. He wasn't sure why they'd needed reinforcements, but the Blue Suns hadn't gotten where they were by not loading the dice.

Of course, he and his crew also had to do it all legal and above board, which was why they weren't just going to blow the shuttle out of space. Instead, they were going to let them on board and hopefully do something stupid. Which was why Kal was there and he was here.

"They're making the approach," the captain's voice said over the comline. That was something that too many people didn't pay attention to-wire transmissions were always more secure than wired ones.

Schuder smiled. Of course, there were good reasons for that, especially in space, but when you had a pilot like Bullfinch and a plan that required you to stay close, those reasons went out the window.

"Understood. Just tell us when they dock and open the airlock. We'll take it from there."

"Roger. Captain out."

When it came to Kanan, the only really annoying thing about him was that he was a tad on the nervous side. On the other hand, Schuder would certainly have been nervous in his position. As it turned out, the captain and crew owned the ship, though of course the captain had the majority.

However, he was also the sort of fellow who, when his property was threatened and he was lied to, got his dander up, as Ferguson put it. That was a good expression.

At any rate...

"They're docked."

"Coming up now. Bullfinch!"

The main thing was to avoid any accusations of piracy against themselves. Admittedly, such charges could be hard to make stick, considering that the captain would be swearing up and down otherwise, but the Blue Suns had considerable influence. Not playing fast and loose with what little law there was in the Terminus Systems was a good idea.

As the _Hawkwood_ hopped over the freighter, he wondered if the Blue Suns in the shuttle had been smart or stupid. He expected stupid, but you never knew—

The docking tube disintegrated, and his eyes went wide as he saw the outrush of air as the receiving area experienced explosive decompression in the half second before the door shut. He hoped no one he knew had been between the halves of the door when that happened.

The shuttle took off, leaving several bodies floating in space, and Schuder smiled grimly.

"Blow 'em to hell, Bullfinch," he ordered.

"Yes, sir!" The pilot replied, and he triggered the turrets. The shuttle blew apart two seconds later.

"Good. Now let's see if there's any survivors."

Two. That was how many of the Blue Suns mercenaries were still alive. When they'd seen Kal and the others, the shuttle's crew hadn't even bothered to try and let anyone back on board. Instead, they'd hit the emergency undocking button, and most of the mercs had been either dazed or knocked unconscious when the docking tube came apart.

That was the problem with groups like the Blue Suns, Schuder thought. Squads might be loyal to each other, platoons maybe, but once you got out of the "I know you and we've fought together" category a common employer came a distant second to personal safety.

Frankly, as far as Schuder was concerned the galaxy was better off without such. They'd had time to get at least a few aboard, or to surrender. Instead, they'd cut and run and left their fellows in the lurch.

Of course, the survivors didn't know much of anything, either, which had made the question of what to do with them much simpler. They were engaged in an act of piracy. Therefore, they were pirates. Simple as that.

He would admit that his summary execution of the two mercenaries did mean that the crew of the shuttle had had good reason to turn and run. But still. There were things you just didn't do.

At any rate, now that this part of the business was done it was time to get involved with the really important part of the plan. Getting to the cargo's destination, and then utterly wrecking the place.

Said destination was one of the larger mining facilities on Aite, a planet which was going to have its moon crash into it in around a century or so, and it didn't really have a government. What it had was a bunch of small colonies and different mining outfits and their support structures, which meant that the law was somewhat unevenly enforced.

The workers had gotten restless, so the owners had bought the riot control gear instead of responding to the workers' demands.

The company was, of course, headquartered on Ilium. By now Schuder had concluded that Ilium meant nothing but trouble and that staying away except for business was a good idea.

At any rate, the lack of a planetary government meant that Schuder had a lot more leeway in how they did the job. In other words, lots and lots of precision firepower, sneakiness useful but not necessary.

Although he did plan to have them try and keep things covert. It was important that people know why the facility went down, but he would prefer if no one knew who. At least, not officially.

Until they reached the system and got into orbit, however, there really wasn't much planning they could do. However, the key thing was to make sure the _Hawkwood_ and the merchant didn't arrive in company with each other.

If he hadn't been worried about what might happen to the captain if he were linked to what was about to happen next, the plan would have been quite simple—land at the facility's dock, then give the welcoming committee an unwelcome surprise. However, moral qualms aside, he didn't think vas'Ryel would be very happy with him for exposing a friend to that kind of heat.

Which was why the merchant was going to deliver the riot control gear, but would be doing so with Ferguson, Quill, and Alana aboard. They would be gathering all of the data they could. In the meantime, the Hawkwood would be scanning from orbit.

He wasn't sure which would give more results, but every little bit helped.

Once the merchant had dropped off its cargo and left the system, hopefully after acquiring another one, they would attack the place.

He wondered what kind of complications there would be.

The answer, as it happened, was "quite a few."

"That's an impressive guard force," Kal said. "Makes sense, though, since they were expecting something."

Unfortunately, Schuder thought as he looked at the data in front of him.

There were four thousand workers, a grab bag of all the spacefaring species of the galaxy, excluding vorcha. Three hundred technical staff, mostly asari and salarians. And two hundred and fifty guards, half of whom were batarian and recently recruited, according to the records.

That had filled him with cold fury. Guards of any species weren't known for being gentle with unruly workers, but batarians had an especially bad reputation. Combined with batarian riot control gear, it was obvious that the executives wanted to make a statement.

He had no intention of letting them.

He looked at Ferguson. "The workers are planning to go on strike this week?"

"Yes, sir. The company knows, of course, and the workers know they know. They figure they can stand up against the usual guards, but they don't know about the batarians or their equipment." Her voice was cold enough to freeze helium.

He grunted. The workers were usually wrong about their capacity to stand up to the guards, mostly because they underestimated how ruthless their bosses could get.

This time, though, he was fairly sure that they'd read the situation right, mostly because they had weapons of their own, and some former soldiers. The owners had figured out the same thing, so they'd hired the batarians. They wouldn't be much use in a real fight, but they'd do fine for smashing up the main body of workers while the other guards took out the ones with guns.

Well, that wasn't going to happen if he had anything to say about it.

He looked at the map of the facility and its surroundings and nodded. The mining facility itself was built to standard specs, which wasn't surprising, but there really wasn't enough space inside for all the workers to assemble in a body.

Instead..."Ferguson," he asked, "where would your father have them assemble?"

"Here, sir," she replied, pointing to the landing area. "It's the biggest open space around, and it's in the middle of things. Also, can't move cargo in and out if there's people on it."

Her mouth quirked in what might have been a smile if it was a little less cold. "I wish my father were here. He'd know exactly how the bosses would set up their goons."

Schuder shook his head. "It's not that hard to figure out. They're going to want to give the workers somewhere to run, but they'll want them to be badly bloodied. So they'll deploy the batarians here," he pointed to an area opposite the warehouses, "and have the warehouses locked down tight and the guards on the flanks.

"When the batarians go into action, the workers with guns will open fire. The regular guards will then return it, and probably more effectively. The resultant stampede will take the workers between the three warehouses. There's only about fifty feet between each, and there's a lot of clutter. More than a few of the workers are going to get trampled."

He smiled coldly. "Except that their plan is going to get a spanner in the works. Here's what we're going to do."

The really tricky part was the insertion. Fortunately, the pilots were good enough that it was doable. The shuttles dropped from the _Hawkwood _in one of the few areas not covered by satellites or really visible from anywhere on the ground, then cruised along as close to the nap of the earth as possible.

It was a long haul, nearly two hours, but he was confident in Petracci's piloting skills. Though dropping from the Hawkwood while it was still going at speed had been a bit exciting.

The shuttles had dropped him and the troops off at the closest possible LZ to the base without being spotted by either satellites or ground sensors. Fortunately, no one had sats in geosynchronous orbit.

It was about a ten kilometer walk, and while the orbital scans had given them a good terrain profile, he hadn't known how much undergrowth there would be. And there had been a lot. They'd gone only half the distance between landing and dawn, and while the tree cover was thick he didn't want to take chances.

After stopping for the day, where he'd found out that he hadn't lost the knack every soldier developed for being able to sleep no matter the conditions, they'd pushed on once their route was out of the way of any satellites. That night had gotten them here, overlooking the facility.

In the two days since the merchant had set down, Schuder thought grimly, the situation had gotten worse. The miners' shooting ranges weren't out in the open, exactly, but it was very clear that they intended to let it be known that they had weapons.

That showed either some degree of cleverness or uncommon foolishness. If they were hoping to convince the owners to give in, they were idiots. If they were trying to convince the owners to not start the party themselves, they were at least thinking. Unfortunately, this particular consortium seemed to be more ruthless than usual.

One of the things he was going to do was find out who the owners were, if that was possible. However, that would have to wait. Right now, he needed a way into the workers' leadership, and Ferguson was working on the most important part of that—finding out who it was.

They were all in a small cave, which was why he heard her say "Dad?"

This, he thought, was going to make things a bit simpler but ever so much more fraught than he thought it would be.

Sergeant Ferguson, Schuder thought as he looked at Chuck Ferguson, must have gotten most of her looks from her mother. About the only things the burly fellow in front of him shared with his daughter were height and hair color. Well, and brains, as evidenced by the fact that he wasn't jumping onto Schuder's offer immediately.

Which, while gratifying in terms of what would come next, was extremely frustrating right now.

He sighed. "Mr. Ferguson, allow me to put someone else on the line. Sergeant, come over here."

She took the com from him and started off the best way possible. "Dad?"

"Pat? What're you doing here?" He heard before the elder Ferguson lowered his voice. After that, all he could hear was the daughter, but he could imagine what her father was saying from her responses.

"I got out of the Alliance recently, Dad."

What are you doing here?

"We got a contract to go after the consortium that owns this place."

What does that mean for us?

"In this case, it means we're going to help you out, and I think you'll want us to."

Why?

"Because they bought some nasty stuff, Dad. Like they use on Anhur."

A long pause. I wasn't expecting that.

"Yeah, I know you weren't, Dad. They didn't even try that when you got the union together on Pamyat. That's what we're here for-to find out who'd be willing to use that stuff on striking workers."

Yeah. It's good to see you.

"It's good to see you too, Dad. Can you meet us outside the refinery?"

Where?

"Your gun range."

I'll be there.

"See you there, Dad."

With that, Ferguson cut the connection and turned to Schuder, who shook his head wryly.

"You should have asked me first," he reproved, "but as it happens it is best if you come along with me. I think you being there will put your father more at ease, and that's going to be important."

As it turned out, Chuck Ferguson was actually reasonably easy to talk to. While he was a little wary, once he'd seen his daughter in person he'd relaxed completely.

It was the usual story, so far as it went. Lots of promises, none of them in writing of course, and all broken within weeks of the facility's opening. One of the workers had a friend who was an organizer, and called him in.

When he arrived, he quickly determined that he was out of his depth, and called up Ferguson, who had fortunately been between jobs. Once he got here, matters had proceeded apace. A lot of the usual tactics the companies used-starving them out, for example-weren't viable here, as the place was a tourist attraction, which he'd thought would give them room to work-and the labor unions had deep pockets.

The news Schuder had brought, however, was an indication that they'd miscalculated badly, and while Ferguson wasn't antagonistic he was a little shaken.

"I don't get it. I've seen companies go straight to guns and truncheons before, but using batarian riot gear would turn everyone against them. They'd be lucky to get any business at all."

That was when it clicked.

"Do you know who actually owns this place?" Schuder asked.

"I know the names on the papers aren't the same as the actual owners. All of them together don't have the money to set up a place like this, or to get the loan for it."

Schuder nodded. It all fit. "How much d'you want to bet," he asked quietly, "that the consortium owning this place is a front for the batarian government?"

Ferguson was very quiet for a moment. Then he started cursing.

Once he was done, he looked at Schuder. "Yeah, that makes sense. Like why they'd go directly to violence 'stead of at least pretending to negotiate for a little while. Even Ilium corps want that fig leaf."

Schuder nodded in understanding, though he wasn't entirely sure if he did. It did make a certain amount of sense, at any rate—if you at least pretended to negotiate, it made the nearly-inevitable "break up the intransigent workers" story easier to swallow.

"So, Captain," the old man asked, "I suppose you have a plan?"

"As a matter of fact...yes."

A lot of people, Schuder thought, would have said that he was rolling far too many pairs of dice and expecting them all to come up seven.

Well, that wasn't quite the case. First, he'd loaded all the dice. Second, they didn't all need to come up seven. In fact, he only needed none of them to turn up snake-eyes.

Of course, it would help if he knew what the guard commander knew. He'd hopefully managed to infiltrate his troops in last night under the cover of Ferguson giving the workers a pep talk before they marched today.

Right now the workers were marching right into the trap. This had been the hardest part to convince Ferguson of-the man genuinely cared-but one of the things about Batarian riot control gear was that it wasn't immediately lethal.

And he had his men deployed properly.

Ferguson, however, had insisted on being up front. If he was going to send his people into a trap, he was going with them.

Small wonder that he was such a successful organizer.

However, Schuder couldn't be there. Someone had to coordinate everything. And besides, it wouldn't be long before things got pretty hot for him, too.

He zoomed in on the guards' positions. As he'd thought. The batarians were clustered in the center, the other guards on the flanks. First part of the plan was going to go quite well.

The crowd walked on, quietly determined to make their voices heard and to obstruct company operations for as long as it took. The batarians looked almost eager with anticipation.

They opened fire, and the front ranks of the protestors dissolved into a screaming, writhing mass as the neuro shock grenades landed. He'd told his troops to stay back for a reason. Most of those people would die if they didn't get to a doctor within the hour.

There was no need for him to give the order. The grenades landing had been the signal. The snipers, including him, sent explosive rounds downrange, while the shotgunners sent their rockets into the center of the batarians.

The close-packed ranks were good for riot control, but they were terrible for an actually armed opponent. More than half of the batarians went flying in every direction, and most of the rest staggered back from the force of the blast.

For a moment, everything paused as the guards and workers suddenly realized that the equation had just changed twice in as many seconds. The batarians, especially, seemed to be in a state of shock.

He grinned savagely as his sniper rifle cooled down. And then the shotgunners and snipers all fired again, and just about all of the rest of the batarians went all over the place.

That shook the rest of the guards out of their shock. They knew that the protest had just become a riot, and that their only chance was to kill enough of the workers quickly enough that the rest would break.

Whether or not they managed that, there were still going to be hundreds if not thousands of dead workers.

Or there would have been, if the rest of Schuder's troops hadn't opened fire and started rolling up their flanks.

However, the guards nearer the center had some breathing room. And unfortunately, sniper rounds left a bit of a track. And any good soldier knew that killing the snipers was one of your first priorities.

And Schuder had deliberately put himself in the most exposed position possible. He was not going to mention that in his after-action report. Well, assuming he got to write one.

Nearly twenty assault rifles and shotguns started firing at his position, and while none of them were hitting him the spall from their impacts definitely was and it wouldn't be long before someone thought to send an explosive round his way.

Well, it wouldn't have been long if the workers Ferguson had armed hadn't opened fire. All of them were veterans from the Alliance or Turian militaries, and they'd told their compatriots to clear out of the way the moment the shooting started.

Their fellow workers had been more than happy to do so once the bullets started flying, which Schuder didn't blame them for. Mobs of unarmed men overrunning men armed with automatic weapons out in the open occasionally happened, but the results were never worth the cost. Ever.

Besides, the guards were focused on his men, and that meant they had assumed that all the workers were running. Which meant that when the armed ones opened fire, the guards were taken completely by surprise.

And that was their undoing. It was just one shock to the system too many, and they broke and ran, which in this case was actually not a terrible idea. Or, at least, if it hadn't been so far for them to run to the nearest cover.

He and the other snipers picked off all of the ones rushing for the headquarters before any of them got close. The ones who ran towards the warehouses managed to get inside, unfortunately, but as long as they were watched they wouldn't be able to do anything to interfere.

Well, if the warehouse had heavy machinery or explosives in it they might, but most company guards weren't that resourceful.

Schuder grinned like a death's head and got on the radio. "Mr. Ferguson," he asked, "would you like to negotiate with management now?"

Ferguson's laugh was not nice at all.

Fortunately, as long the victims got prompt medical attention, batarian riot control gear was quite survivable. It was still, however, extraordinarily painful. Also, two workers had died in the crossfire, and dozens had been injured as they ran.

Also, Schuder had made sure that his men were recording everything that happened. In other words, they had the management over a barrel. And they were in the mood to take full advantage of it.

The local management team might have thought they could get away with being involved as long as they had a few day's head start. Now, however, they had no opportunity for escape.

Which was why the first message he had Sergeant Ferguson send them was "If, when we get in there, it even looks like the computers have been altered, we'll hold the trial here and now. If they're intact, we take it elsewhere."

It would all be perfectly legal, too. In the Terminus systems, as far as the Council was concerned, a ship's captain had supreme legal authority wherever he was out and away from the writ of another governing body. And there was, currently, no real governing body here, as the Council defined it.

And Schuder was captain of the _John Hawkwood_. His word was law. Of course, the reality was that if he did something that ticked off Ferguson enough he'd likely end up dead, but the labor organizer and he had nonconflicting goals.

At any rate, with a judge and jury composed of the friends and coworkers of the victims, and their obvious complicity in what had happened, the on-site management team would have a snowball's chance in hell if the trial happened here. If the trial were held elsewhere, with a different jury pool and a probably bribed judge, they might even manage to walk free if they cooperated enough.

Once they had the place surrounded, they had made arrangements for a face-to-face meeting outside, which was where he was now.

He intended to keep negotiations had been along the same lines from there. Having the elder Ferguson along would be very helpful on that regard, along with Anthus Silvus, a very large turian whose brother had been in the front of the march.

The head manager was a very nervous-looking asari, just moving into her matron years. However, looking at the others, it was obvious that despite that she was the one in charge.

Well.

Sort of.

More like the one who was unlucky enough to be the highest-ranked employee here.

She looked at him and tried to smile, but it was a pale and sickly thing. "What do you want?" She asked, in a voice that made it clear that she knew who held all the cards, and that it wasn't her.

"Full access to your files and your full cooperation. Anything else, and, well..." he shrugged.

She nodded then. "Anything else?"

"We'll discuss this facility later, and what's going to be done with it. Right now, I want all of your people out of there." He paused. "And if there are any traps in there, there won't be a trial. Understood?"

The asari nodded frantically.

"Call them out. And remember..."

"Yes, yes," she said as she activated her omni-tool. "Don't worry, we're not going to do anything stupid."

As far as Schuder was concerned, they'd already failed there by sticking around once the batarian goon squad showed up, but maybe there were extenuating circumstances. Of course, they'd have to be pretty extreme to get any sympathy out of him, but such were quite plausible out here.

However, that wasn't relevant, presently, and he waited for them to come back out. Ten minutes passed, then fifteen. At twenty he was preparing to order the assault when he saw the trio that had come out to meet them exit the building, followed by the rest of the staff, including the few surviving guards.

All of them had their hands in the air as they walked, and they all looked vaguely terrified. That was good—it meant that they might actually be cooperative, as long as someone didn't push them into "catatonic" or "rage of despair," either of which was easy to get to from there.

Matters proceeded apace. The prisoners were searched and locked up, their omni-tools confiscated, and in the case of the asari a damping collar fitted. Said omni-tools were then turned over to Sergeant Ferguson, who would get to them later. She'd gotten the entire on-site management teams passwords, and she was going through the files as fast as she could, looking for evidence of their hunch.

Meanwhile, he and the rest of the troops were looking for more physical evidence, as were some of the workers who weren't guarding the prisoners while Alana interrogated them. He wasn't confident that they'd find much of anything, but there was always the hope.

At the very least, they'd have enough to get this thing put up for auction, and Ferguson had some very interesting ideas for the place. Specifically, they intended for it to be employee-owned. Schuder wasn't sure how that would work, or if it would work, but Ferguson said it could. Besides, that didn't really matter to him.

What mattered to him was whether or not they could actually tie the Batarians to this mess. While getting this place from them would be painful enough, especially with the personnel losses, being able to throw another example of their brutality at them would add insult to injury.

It might also shake some of the Hegemony's sympathizers. Schuder didn't understand such people—they went right along with the Voluntary Human Extinction crowd in terms of nuttiness-but they existed. And sometimes they could be reasoned with.

That, however, was entirely dependent on...

Ferguson squealed in triumph. "Got it, Captain!"

Schuder grinned.

After that, it was all over but the shouting. The on-site management team had recorded literally everything they possibly could once they realized who they were working for. And, as it happened, there were extenuating circumstances—they had been prohibited from going off-world, with penalties for doing so that would have utterly destroyed them.

And that was more than enough to trap the board of the company. Which meant that they talked. Ilium was willing to tolerate a lot. Batarian riot control gear was not on the list.

Which was somewhat remarkable, given some of the devices Schuder had seen openly advertised, albeit in the seedier parts of the planet.

At any rate, most of the board members had rolled quickly. The batarians hadn't chosen well, unsurprisingly—Schuder suspected that being stuck inside the Hegemony induced brain-rot. At any rate, he and Ferguson had succeeded quite thoroughly in their goals.

The labor organizer and crew had bought the facility at auction for fire-sale prices. They'd also found out why the batarians had gone to such lengths to get the facility up and running—it was sitting on a treasure trove of eezo.

Ferguson had then paid Schuder a good-sized chunk of cash, in addition to the money he'd gotten from the first contract that had led to this one. All in all, he was quite content.

Well, except for one thing.

vas'Ryel knew something. He didn't know everything, but he knew that Schuder wasn't an independent.

How did he know that vas'Ryel knew that?

When someone says, "tell your boss that it's a pleasure working with you," it's usually a good indication.

He would much rather have gone to the quarian without him knowing that.

He shrugged.

Cross that bridge when he came to it.


End file.
